Gender Criticism free essay sample

Her character is first introduced as â€Å"blocked and heavy†, with clodhoppers, heavy gloves and a man’s black hat. Her face is described as â€Å"eager and mature and handsome. All of these are very masculine descriptions, like Steinbeck is going out of his way to make her seem as manly as possible. Elisa’s initial reactions to situations in the book tend to be masculine as well, but she is eventually reminded that she is supposed to be feminine. When her husband Henry concludes his business with the cattle buyers, Elisa immediately wants to know who the men were and what they wanted. Henry pays her a compliment about her â€Å"strong new crop† of chrysanthemums. She is smug and pleased with his masculine choice of words, but then he immediately invites her to dinner in town. She seems to deflate at his statement, as if his invitation reminded her of her femininity. We will write a custom essay sample on Gender Criticism or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page She then goes back to her masculine role of working with the flowers. She again reacts this way with the handy man that comes to her fence. She initially rejects the man’s offer to fix her pots and pans and to sharpen her scissors. She tells him that she can mend her own pots and sharpen her own scissors. She is ready to turn him away, but then he starts to ask her about her chrysanthemums. The man starts complimenting her flowers and flattering her. She immediately changes her tune, and she seems to become attracted to him. He tells her that he knows a lady that would love to have some of her beautiful flowers, so she gets him a pot with some bulbs to take to the lady. She then relents and goes to find some work for the man. This scene points to a woman’s weakness for flattery. Elisa doesn’t realize that the man was manipulating her. Her attraction to the handy man seems to bring out the feminine side of Elisa. She goes in to get ready for dinner with her husband and scrubs herself â€Å"until her skin was scratched and red†. She is retreating back to her feminine traits without really thinking about it. She then puts on her best underwear and dress and applies makeup. Her husband comments on how nice she looks, and this flatters her. While on the way to dinner with her husband Elisa finally realizes that she had been taken advantage of. She sees that the handy man has discarded her beloved chrysanthemums in the ditch on the side of the road. She realizes that the man used flattery of her and her flowers to get work. This realization makes her break down and cry. She then understands that she is doomed to her current role in society, a passive woman, and she hates it. This story also points to the arrogance and assumptions of men. Elisa’s husband never thinks that there could possibly be anything for her to be unhappy about. Elisa starts to get combative toward him and challenging his compliments when they are getting ready to leave the house. She is upset that he told her she looked nice, when earlier in the day he described her as strong. Then after she sees the flowers on the side of the road she remarks on how good it will be to have dinner away from the house. The husband acts bewildered and says, â€Å"Now you’re changed again. † He doesn’t understand why she should have anything to be upset about. I think that Steinbeck does a great job of bringing gender inequality issues to light in this story.

Leadership style free essay sample

Robert â€Å"Bob† Gale was the first sales manager ever worked with at Baxter Healthcare’s Renal Division. Although Bob never had a political agenda, when it came to managing the Hemodialysis Sales Team, he demonstrated many traits of a transforming leader. According to Yukl, â€Å"These leaders seek to raise the consciousness of followers by appealing to ideals and moral values.† (p. 347). The first advice this manager bestowed upon the team was that he would support any decision or action team members made as long as said decision or action satisfied three criteria. Those criteria were team sense, business sense, and common sense. The transforming leadership style is a sub-style of ethical leadership, which has many values emphasized. Bob Gale’s willingness to support his team’s efforts despite the ramifications exhibits an altruistic character. Yukl describes an ethical leader who is altruistic as one who, â€Å"Enjoys helping others, is willing to take risks or make sacrifices to protect or benefit others, puts the needs of others ahead of own needs. The coercive style should be used with extreme caution, as in during a crisis, for its impact is ruinous to the group. This style of leadership used by Kim Jung-Un has close supervision and comprehensive control systems, reinforced by a hierarchical structure and a narrow span of control. Following is a critique of autocratic Leadership Style, along with its pros and cons. Ken Jong-Un Autocratic Leadership: The major autocratic leadership style characteristics include: The autocratic leader retains all power, authority, and control, and reserves the right to make all decisions. Autocratic leaders distrust their subordinate’s ability, and closely supervise and control people under them. Autocratic leaders involve themselves in detailed day-to-day activities, and rarely delegate or empower subordinates. The autocratic leader adopts one-way communication. They do not consult with subordinates or give them a chance to provide their opinions, no matter the potential benefit of such inputs. Autocratic leadership assumes that employee motivation comes not through empowerment, but by creating a structured set of rewards and punishments. Autocratic leaders get work done by issuing threats and punishments and evoking fear. The primary concern of autocratic leaders remains dealing with the work at hand and not on developmental activities. Autocratic leaders assume full responsibility and take full credit for the work. Are There Advantages of Autocratic Leadership Style? Autocratic leadership creates a centralized chain of command with heavy involvement of the leader in all gamut’s of operations. This leads to the formation of a hub and spoken type of organizational structure that helps in many ways, such as: getting things done quickly improving communication and logistics. Better response to changes in the external environment putting forth a more coordinated approach toward fulfilling organizational goals. Anticipating problems in advance, and better realization of consequences of an action by one section on other sections. Proponents of the autocratic leadership style advocate it as an ideal method to extract high performance from followers without putting them under stress. They insist the close supervision and monitoring leads to a faster pace of work with less slack, where the leader assumes full responsibility for the decisions and actions, ultimately creating reduced stress for subordinates. What Are Disadvantages of Autocratic Leadership Style? Disadvantages of autocratic leadership notwithstanding, this leadership style has borne the brunt of heavy criticism in the last several decades, where the move toward systems thinking and empowering people have led to the perception of â€Å"autocratic† and â€Å"centralized command† as negative and undesirable traits. This assumes that ambitious and self-motivated followers enjoy their mental and physical work duties. Such followers possess the ability for creative problem solving, but most organizations under-utilize their talents. This theory holds that followers seek and accept responsibility and exercise self-control and self-direction in accomplishing objectives, provided the conditions remain congenial for such an approach. The autocratic leadership style remains wholly unsuited for followers and does not rank among modern leadership styles in a changing world. What Are The Criticisms Levied Against Autocratic Leadership? The major criticisms levied against autocratic leadership include the following: contrary to claims of close supervision with detailed instructions to reduce stress and improve productivity, research suggests that such actions actually unmotivated followers, and cause them to become tense, fearful, or resentful. Lack of involvement from the followers in the decision making process leads to followers not assuming ownership of their work, contributing to low morale, lack of commitment, and manifesting in high turnover, absenteeism, and work stoppage. The heavily centralized command of autocratic leadership style ensures that the system depends entirely on the leader. If the leader is strong, capable, competent, and just, the organization functions smoothly, and if the leader is weak, incompetent, or has low ethical and moral standards, the entire organization suffers for the sake of a single leader. All power vested with the leader leads to risk of leaders with low moral fiber exploiting followers, indulging in favoritism and discrimination, and the like. Weak autocratic leaders tend to take decisions based on ego rather than sound management principles, and punish followers who dare to disagree with such decisions. The leader reserving the right to make all decisions leads to subordinates becoming heavily dependent on the leader. The team thereby becomes useless in running operations if they lose contact with their leader, and absence of the leader leads to total collapse and shutdown of operations. The one sided communication flow in an autocratic leadership style restricts the creative and leadership skills of the employees and prevents their development. This harms the organization as well, for the followers remain incapable of assuming greater responsibilities, or to perform anything outside the routine. The autocratic leader, by taking all responsibility and involved heavily in day to day operations, remains forced to work at full capacity, leading to stress and other health problems. Autocratic leaders usually remain unpopular and damage working relationships with colleagues. This leadership style is unsuited to build trusting relationships. Is There Any Good Application of Autocratic Leadership Style? A critique of autocratic leadership style reveals that it remains best suited in certain situations such as: occasions when the situation requires a strong centralized control with detailed orders and instructions, such as in the military or during surgery. When leading an extremely large group, such as in assembly line factories, where the wide span of control not only makes it impossible but also counterproductive to elicit the views of all employees. When followers are new or inexperienced, or lack the qualifications, skills, or talent to respond to any participative leadership styles, or remains unmotivated and non-committed workers. During occasions of contingencies, emergencies and other situations warranting on the spot decisions. When dealing or negotiating with external agencies or departments. The autocratic leadership style on the whole remains a short-term or quick fix approach to management. The ability to make decisions faster, while helping the organization in the short term, actually harms the followers leading to poor decision-making capability and low productivity in the long run. This leadership style survives by default because it comes naturally to most leaders, especially in times of low morale or insubordination.

Medieval Life and Time Research Project on Weapons an Example of the Topic History Essays by

Medieval Life and Time Research Project on Weapons by Expert A+ Prof | 16 Dec 2016 The medieval times are considered as some of the most violent times in the history of mankind where the greed of power and money created many battlegrounds for the deadly battles. European countries built many castles in order to preserve their resources. Need essay sample on "Medieval Life and Time Research Project on Weapons" topic? We will write a custom essay sample specifically for you Proceed Students Usually Tell Us: Who wants to write assignment for me? Professional writers propose: Help With Essay Writing The army of each king included many different statures of soldiers including knights, archers, foot soldiers etc. and each had different types of weapons based upon technique and priority. Knights were considered to be the best of the warriors and foot soldiers were always there to get their order done. Knight used very different weapons from the ordinary soldier. Kings were supposed to fulfill all the needs of their soldiers. Knights used special knight weapons, medieval swords, broadsword, falchion sword, great sword, long sword, medieval shields and lance. In addition to that knights also used other small weapons as well. The descriptions of other weapons which are commonly used in battles are given below; Daggers: They are the pointed knives which are shorter in length. Maces: Maces are two steel balls attached on the wooden handle. They are quite heavy and can be dangerous. Lance: This is long steel headed spear like weapon which is used on the horseback. Knights are specialized to use this weapon effectively. It was extensively used in 11th century by the knights. Swords: They are of different kinds and the most used weapon of the medieval times because of its effectiveness. Broad Swords: The history of broad sword goes back to the 6th century. It is two edged blade which is think at the base around 2-3 inches. Its length is around 30-45 inches and weighs around 5 to 6 pounds. Falchion Swords: This sword was used extensively in the crusade wars by the knights. They are short and heavy single blade edge. It was used around 11th century. Great Sword: This sword was actively used in the 16th century. It was a heavy weapon and ranged more than 50 cm in handle with an addition of around 20 cm for the handle. It was weighed around 6-10 pounds. Long Sword: Long sword was a highly efficient weapon in the Renaissance period around 1350 to 1550 and in the late medieval times. It was also called as a hand and a half sword. It has length of around 50 cm. The Scimitar: It is made as a curved blade which has a sharp edge. It was also used in the crusade wars. Cutting Sword: This sword is most commonly known as the weapon of Vikings as it history goes back very far. It has very heavy and had two sharp blades on both sides. The handle was not that long. Longbow: Longbow has been used the history for thousand of years and is used for various purposes not only in wars but also for hunting. They are single piece of wood having a point steel or iron on the top. It is very effective in killing large animals as well. Battleaxe: Battleaxes have also been used by foot soldiers to great affect on the enemy. The wooden handle of battleaxe is around 150 cm with a curved blade of around 10 inch. It was used in the battle of Hasting in 11th century. Crossbow: It was another deadly weapon like the longbow but is more deadly than the longbow. Halberd: It was a very dominating weapon in the 14th and 15th century. The skills which are developed in the knights and foot soldiers of using these weapons require training in high facility areas so that they can achieve highest possible efficiency in using them. The training period was very long and required around fourteen years to complete at least. Moreover, first the soldier becomes a page and then depending upon their abilities and results shown. The training period continues and the page becomes a squire and then a knight. Knight is considered to be the best post of a soldier in the army. Works Cited Falchion Sword http://www.middle-ages.org.uk/falchion-sword.htm Nossov, Konstantin. Ancient and Medieval Siege Weapons: A Fully Illustrated Guide to Siege Weapons and Tactics. New york: The Lyons Press, 2005. Oakeshott, Ewart. A Knight and His Weapons. New York: Dufour Editions, 1998. DK Publishing. Weapon: A Visual History of Arms and Armor. Dallas: DK ADULT, 2006. Oakeshott, Ewart. The Archaeology of Weapons: Arms and Armour from Prehistory to the Age of Chivalry. New York: Dover Publications, 1996. Murrell, Deborah. Weapons (Medieval Warfare). World Almanac Library, 2008.

Design of an Enterprise-level essays

Design of an Enterprise-level essays Design of an Enterprise-level Business System There are a number of information gathering methods that can be used to determine the requirements for an enterprise-level business system. The information needed in order to do an analysis of a business can be obtained using these different methods. One method is a simple survey or questionnaire, but when using this method careful consideration must be taken when developing questions for the survey to get the desired information. You must be extremely careful about how the questions are worded. The wrong wording or a complicated question can return a false result. Cooperation of the people in the corporation is required in order to have the survey completed and even returned. On average about 30 percent of the sent surveys are returned, this is still considered a valid survey, if less than 30 percent is returned the survey will be invalidated. Another method for business information-gathering is interviews with everyone or just with key people such as department heads in a corpora tion. The one large problem doing this method is time. This is a very time consuming process and cooperation is not always there. Some employees will not tell you everything you need to know, or they can incorporate biases into information. When this happens accurate information is not gathered only opinions or slanted tales. The third is observation, or walking through the actual processing associated with the system. This is information gathered is fact, not opinion. The problem with this method is that performance of the people being observed may be affected by the presence of an onlooker. The fourth method is gathering all of the documentation or operating procedures and just using them to gather the information needed to do an analysis of the system. One problem with this method is that the documentation may not be up to date. The best method is probably a blending of all methods into one large method...

Strategies of Modern Art Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Strategies of Modern Art - Essay Example The essay "Strategies of Modern Art" investigates the modern art and its strategies. It does this by alluding to Paul Gauguin’s transformative primitivism and synthetist styles. Having been born at a time of European imperialism, Gauguin did not allow himself to succumb to the superiority euphoria of shunning away anything non-European. After distinguishing himself as a painter, print-maker and a sculptor, he could not entertain the impressionist work of art which had been mainly focused on appealing to the eyes of his audience. Instead, he chose to adopt a new strategy that would greatly transform art. His obsession with the Tahiti culture was not only manifested in his obsession with their women, but in the way he depicted their nudity in his paintings. In his strategy, he opted to adopt the new culture and fuse it into his paintings. Thus, he managed to produce excellent pieces that would greatly appeal to his audience. The new strategy introduced by Gauguin was indeed a st ep in the development of modern art. As a father of primitivism, he did a great job by introducing a new style of painting in which he was using bold colors to help in eliciting inherent meanings. Besides, he came up with the idea of using bold colors and evenly distributed throughout the painting. Through this, he managed to ensure that all colors are equally applied without any of them dominating others. Actually, this was a brilliant idea since it transformed painting from the traditional impressionist styles.

Racial and Ethnic Relations Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 5

Racial and Ethnic Relations - Assignment Example ifferent countries contributes to make race relations in that country and consequently, the residents face problems in accepting the outsiders as their own parts. South Africa has a racially defined society and the mentioning of the race becomes compulsory to facilitate the citizens to equalize their past grievances. The dwellers of United States require redressing and balancing of the race in order to live normal lives as United States is a multicultural land with many races as its citizens, therefore the presence of race relations is not a new thing in United States. In South Africa and United States, racism is acknowledged as an issue faced by society; however, Brazilian population rejects the existence of racism in its society. Because of race relations in Different countries, the minorities face economic disparity and majorities rise in economic power as well as political power. In South Africa, race relations cannot be ended as the culture is deeply enriched with racial discrimination. Restrained kind of relations can be found out in African population. Similarly, in United States, ethnicity, racism and discrimination are very clear as people are offered different types of facilities according to their races. The African Americans located in United States are mostly poor with no economic stability due to which, they get less opportunities of health care, education, employment and so on. Black population everywhere in the world was racially deprived except in South Africa. Slavery was at the base of Black racism. United States got fame because of its slave trade. Even in South Africa, some people were involved in selling those who were poor and dependent. However, African government considers slavery as a mistreatment with its people. At this juncture, when there are no more slaves, the old status of Africans still makes them guilty of their historically deprived status. The race relations are not discriminative in United States only but also in Brazil.

Ventus and Business Process Outsourcing Article

Ventus and Business Process Outsourcing - Article Example The company focuses on delivering value to its customers in various areas such as cost-savings, service level quality, and process improvements. The customers chose Ventus due to its superior performance and the cost savings that were incurred. Ventus also provided value added services such as designing specific systems to deal with busy seasons such as holidays, for example, it developed a system for a flower company that dealt with the spike in calls on Valentine’s day and Mother’s day. The Philippine BPO industry has been hit by the global recession. Due to this most companies are forgoing new projects and consolidating outsourcing services in one area to cut cost. The recession has been a major challenge for Ventus as it has decreased the number of present and potential customers. Outsourcing was usually for corporations that were involved in financial services, retailers, and travel firms which were the hardest hit by the recession. Banks and other financial institutions have merged and wrapped up their various operations to cut costs. Companies who have incurred losses have dropped plans to outsource the processes. The fierce competition in the BPO industry in the Philippines will make it more difficult for Ventus and its competitors to survive as the customers decrease and profits fall. Ventus can address the challenges it faces by diversification into other countries apart from America. Before the financial crisis, Ventus had diversified its customer base by reaching out to local customers. Domestic clients cushioned the impact of the global financial crisis on Ventus and helped it sustain profitability and growth. Thus Ventus should focus more of its resources locally and globally. This will enable Ventus to diversify its market and risks.  Ã‚