Summary of How diversity works Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Summary of How diversity works - Essay Example It has been shown to be crucial in enhancing creativity. It also gives rise to more information and perspectives and hence proper decision making and solution to the problems. Likewise, diversity has been shown to help one change ways of thinking. There are various ways in which diversity is linked to information and innovation. This is seen as different people are brought together. Such people bring different things like information, ideas, and perspectives. It is noted that people differing in terms of issues such as race and gender when brought together bring with them unique information and knowledge. The attributes help in solving a task at hand or easy achievement of the goal. The diversity of gender and racial has been shown through research to enhance innovation and a hence boost of various organizations. Secondly, diversity is shown to have an effect on studies and education. Concern for diversity in this area has been based on productivity and equity. As it exists, gender and culture is said to have a significant influence on science. The influence is seen on what one chooses to study. For example, the male and females may choose to take a different direction of a particular study to generate results that are favorable to their view. Culture, on the other hand, may take a different approach to particular study. The result is good as it led to the development of different insight in a particular field of study. Thirdly, diversity has been shown to lead to an exchange of a wider range of information. Social diversity is said to increased difference in perspective. Members that are less diverse are more likely to agree as compared to socially diverse people. The disagreement in diverse people makes members work hard both cognitively and socially to build a consensus at ease. Such level of concentration has shown to lead to better results. Diversity is also seen in the field of science. Opening science to public participation has led

Martin Luther King Jr.,Malcolm X, and the Civil Rights Movement of the Essay

Martin Luther King Jr.,Malcolm X, and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s - Essay Example and Malcolm X. Although, both King and Malcolm X are historically known to be advocates for the rights of African Americans their approaches and perception were shaped from different perspectives. The ideologies of King and Malcolm X though similar in fighting for the right of African Americans, were different in a number of ways both socially and culturally as a result of different avenues of development they experienced King and Malcolm X came from families that had significant differences socially, culturally, economically and ideologically. King was brought up in a rather financially stable family where his father was able to provide for them for a comfortable life. According to Darby, King was brought up in a middle-class family where they lived in a good house and never lacked in food and clothing (8). Martin’s parents had completely black heritages and Martin’s father was a Minister of the Baptist Church. King also enjoyed formal education and later became a respectable member in his community. Malcolm X on the other hand did not enjoy the kind of stability King had. Although Malcolm X’s father had a complete black heritage and is actually described as being proud of his heritage, Malcolm’s mother had a white father, was a bit light skinned and was ashamed of her mixed heritage. According to Wainstock, Malcolm’s mother would instill in her children the import ance of being black and actually favored her black children â€Å"over the light skinned Malcolm (5). Malcolm’s encounters with racism were charcterized by violence and outright hatred. In his early years their house was burnt by the racist group called the Black Legion (Wainstock 6). Malcolm also felt that his imprisonment was not primarily due to burglary but because of his involvement with white women from the upper class (Wainstock 19). After the death of his father and the

Managing Innovation at St. Lukes Medical Center Essay

Managing Innovation at St. Lukes Medical Center - Essay Example Every organization exists to achieve a purpose. In order to attain organizational goals, a set of policies and strategies are defined and developed by management. As averred by Christensen, Andrews, & Bower (3), policy is â€Å"the study of the functions and responsibilities of senior management, the crucial problems that affect success in the total enterprise, and the decisions that determine the direction of the organization and shape its function†. One of the strategic management decisions undertaken by aggressive and competitive organizations is innovation. Most business practitioners have grown accustomed to innovation stemming from new inventions and advancing technology. But suiting policy to changing circumstances includes also the application of a firm’s long-established strengths to unexplored segments of the market via innovations in price, service, distribution, or merchandising. Innovation is the â€Å"process by which an idea or invention is translated into a good or service for which people will pay. In business, innovation results often from the application of a scientific or technical idea in decreasing the gap between the needs or expectations of the customers and the performance of a firm's products.† (Business Dictionary 1) One of the most innovative organizations in Asia is St. Luke’s Medical Center in the Philippines. It is the number one hospital in the Philippines but its vision is to be one of the top five medical institutions in Asia by 2010.

I will upload the topic Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

I will upload the topic - Essay Example The first Patrick Farrell image does not distort the loss of lives in the wake of the earthquakes, instead, it ethically represent a human tragedy. There is a human tragedy in Haiti and the images work well in describing depth of the tragedy to the readers. The photographs gave the depth of the strategy and mobilized support for rebuilding Haiti. Perhaps there could be no other way of making the image more touchy and real. The images are both equally timely because they tend to depict the events following an earthquake in Haiti and the rescue operations taking place. Because Farrell did not face any threat while taking the photos, he did them in a timely manner. All the photographers went all out to publish graphic images and justified their actions by loading what they could bear at the catastrophic scene. It was necessary for Farrell to tell the world, in black and white, how horrible the situation in Haiti. Although some Haitians disagreed with the act of airing insensitive and dehumanizing images, the images successfully passed the message to the world that the earthquake was intense and has consumed lives of many. The disaster was immense and it required intervention from the international community who could only be successfully drawn by understanding the depth of the disaster. The photojournalists aim was to mobilize massive humanitarian action and was deemed an essential aspect of covering the disaster. The images worked well in ensuring that the photojournalists deliver what readers need to see by creating complete and accurate visual report. Farrell made his images real and passed an information that the damage was continuous and that the situation was cruel. It is worth noting that the more the Haiti’s horrific loss was shown in the media the rate of international aid increased. Since the disaster did not involve war casualties, it was necessary to emphasize on the graveness of the natural disaster. The culture that censors visuals

Dream Analysis Essay Example for Free

Dream Analysis Essay Dreams had always been a part of human existence. Since time immemorial, human beings had always been mystified on the phenomenon of dreaming. As early as 5000 B. C. , early civilizations had recorded and tried to interpret their dreams on clay tablets. The Egyptians, puzzled by the existence of dreams, had even believed in a God of Dreams whom they called Serapis. Up to the present age, theorists and psychologists are still unable to arrive at a definite explanation on why humans dream. Dreams are etched in the human mind in such a way that makes it hard for researchers to objectively study them. At present, there are three major theories that are widely accepted that explain such phenomenon: (1) Freud’s Theory (2) Cognitive Theory and the (3) Activation-Synthesis Theory. Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) believed that a dream exists as a wish fulfillment. According to him, people have unsatisfied or unexpressed desires during the times when they are awake and these desires are being fulfilled unconsciously when people dream through sleeping. For example, a person having unfulfilled sexual desires one or two days prior to sleeping may have dreams that are sexually erotic in nature (may lead to ‘wet dreaming’). Similarly, people who had been forced to suppress their anger during waking hours may have dreams that contain violent elements/scenes (Santrock, 2005, p. 244). This theory of Freud is particularly applicable to a personal experience. Once I broke our printer by accident. I was trying to find a way to fix it but the only solution I could think of is having it repaired by a technician. The main dilemma was that I didn’t have the money to have it fixed. It was very fortunate that no one else used the printer that day. When I slept in the evening, I dreamt that a certain old man came to fix our printer free-of-charge. The dream ended there. It can be seen from this experience that a problem during the day was given a temporary solution through dreaming. Although the printer wasn’t really fixed at all, the dream was sufficient in providing a quick way out of my anxiety caused by the broken printer. Another example was the time when I was craving for some McDonald’s Fries for no particular reason. I haven’t been able to go to the said Fast-Food Shop because my mother borrowed my car. I just slept through my craving for McFries and I ended up dreaming about it, only that in my dream, the fries are much larger than the actual size. According to Freud, our dreams may contain scenes or events from our experiences of the past day or of the day before. One particular dream to illustrate this is my dream that I was able to fly. In the dream, I had my arms stretched over my head and I was flying over our village, very much like Superman. I could connect this dream to my behavior when I went swimming with my friends the day before. During my stay underwater, I had been imitating the flying position of Superman imagining that I was floating in mid-air instead of mid-water. An additional example for this theory of Freud is my dream on the Red Queen. I had watched on home video the movie Alice in Wonderland by Tim Burton. I was so irritated with the Red Queen’s face while I was watching the movie that I dreamt of the character when I slept in the evening. In the dream, I was having a dispute with the Red Queen where in the end I won our fight and I was able to command certain Knights, â€Å"Off with her head! † Perhaps connected to this principle of Freud was my experience when I had a fever. I wasn’t feeling well when I slept and I was feeling a bit scared to sleep in solitude. In the middle of my sleep, I dreamt that I was transformed into a cat and that my friends could not recognize me. I was trying my best to scream my name to them but all that I could manage to say were small meows. The next stage of my dream was that I had a small hole in my skull. The small hole led to the deformation of my skull because it secreted foul-smelling cerebral fluid through it. I woke up in the middle of night sweating and breathing heavily. Even though events from days before may appear in a dream, it does not necessarily mean that the scenes in the dream happen in chronology. More often than not, a dream is a homogenous mixture of different time-frames where the sense of chronology is absent. Tied with this principle is that places where dream scenes may happen need not be logical or real. I had dreams before of having to wake up in my bedroom as the sun was just rising and stepping out of my room, I find myself at the school cafeteria way past dusk. I also had a dream wherein I was standing in front of my friend’s house. That friend of mine had offended me during one of our night-out with the rest of our peers. In my dream, I was back to the scene wherein we were having an intense argument. Then, one second of whirling brought me in front of that friend’s house, waiting for him to come out and ask for forgiveness. He didn’t come out of the house though and I was brought to a garden where I found him sitting on a bench. At the end of the dream, I was the one who asked for his forgiveness. The following morning, before I left for school, he gave me a phone call telling me that he was sorry. According to Freud, there are two components of a dream, a surface element which he called the manifest content and a hidden meaning of the surface element which he called the latent content. For example, Freud states that snakes and neckties present in the dream may mean something else. The snake or necktie is the manifest content while its latent content is a male genitalia. This means the snake or necktie symbolizes a male genitalia. This idea of Freud made me remember a dream I had just this weekend. In the dream, I had been boating with a tour guide on the Amazon River. I was so terrified to see a giant snake swimming just under our boat. The faceless tour guide just told me that the snake couldn’t see us because we were in the snake’s blind spot. I never knew what happened with me on that river, only that in the dream I was transported somewhere else I couldn’t remember. Could my dream mean that I am fantasizing about whatever the snake symbolizes? It’s hard to believe though! The second theory of dreaming is the Cognitive Theory. It states that dreaming involves the same cognitive steps used in the waking mind: processing, memory and problem solving (Santrock, 2005, p. 245). In this theory, hidden meanings of dreams through symbols are not regarded as possible. Dreaming is looked upon as an opportunity for the person to find a state of mind where problems can be solved through creative thinking. Robert Louis Stevenson, for example, said that it was in a dream that he acquired the idea for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Elias Howe claimed also that a dream provided him the idea of creating a sewing needle with the hole for the thread on the blunt tip of the needle and not on the middle. (Santrock, 2005, p. 245). Friedrich Kekule, the proponent of the structure of the benzene, said that the cyclic structure of benzene was seen in a dream wherein he saw a snake trying to bite its own tail as it moves in a circular manner. I could apply this theory in one of my experiences. I was trying to come up with a story on how humans need to face trials as means of being emotionally stronger. The story needed to be as creative as possible because I was going to present it to a youth group in our church. Out of fatigue due to too much thinking, I decided to take a nap on my desk. I dreamt then of a young butterfly inside a cocoon. When I woke up, I was reminded of a story I heard long ago from a Franciscan nun wherein a young man tried to help the young butterfly get out of the cocoon by opening the cocoon himself with the use of a pair of scissors. The butterfly went out of the cocoon weakly with scrawny wings and was unable to fly. The struggle of the butterfly to get out of the cocoon by itself helps it to develop stronger wings that would soon enable it to fly. If I hadn’t dreamt of the young butterfly in the cocoon, I wouldn’t have remembered this story! The third theory is the Activation-Synthesis Theory. It states that dreams are part of the brain’s internal effort to explain the neural activity that still exists even though the person is sleeping (Santrock, 2005, p. 245). Neural networks in areas of the forebrain are involved in both the waking and dreaming behaviors. Primary motor and sensory areas of the forebrain may possibly be activated during the sensorimotor aspects of dreaming. (Santrock, 2005, p. 246). For example, if the dream asks for spatial organization, the parietal lobe would be activated. Similarly, if the dream asks for emotional requirements, the amygdala, hippocampus and frontal lobe may be activated. The movement of dreams in a ‘fantasy-whirling’ manner may be due to the sudden, uncoordinated eye movements of REM sleep. The sudden shift or dissolvation of a particular dream scene is explained as due to the normal cycling of neural activation. During stages of sleep, levels of neurotransmitters may rise and fall wherein particular neural networks are activated and shut down. As a new cycle is activated, that is, new sets of neural networks are activated and shut down, a new dream scene comes to the focus. Dreaming, therefore, becomes a succession of fantasy-transitioned slide shows. In connection to this theory, I once had a dream that involved a real experience while I was sleeping. I managed to open my eyes as I was disturbed in the middle of a sleep. I then saw my mother in my room, fixing the mess I left on my study desk. Subconsciously, I knew that I saw my mother inside my room, but then, as if my brain wanted to explain or make a story out of what I saw, the exact scene came to my dream. In the dream, I stood up and helped my mom fix the mess on my desk, but then my mom turned into a classmate of mine and we were back in the classroom listening intently to our teacher. I woke up in the middle of the night, convinced that I really didn’t stand up to help my mom fix my mess. These three theories explain to us why people dream. Freud’s Theory, The Cognitive Theory and the Activation-Synthesis Theory may view the phenomenon of dreaming in three different perspectives. In the present stage of human knowledge when it comes to explaining the human psyche, it could be said that an absolute explanation for dreaming is nonexistent. However, the three theories may work hand-in-hand in explaining and interpreting human dreaming. Reference Santrock, J. W. Psychology 7. McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. , 1221 Avenue of the Americas. Mew York, NY 10020. 244-246

What Is A Sexual Revolution?

What Is A Sexual Revolution? Answer: Sexual revolution is a social movement that challenged traditional codes of behavior related to sexuality and interpersonal relationship throughout the Western world from the 1960s into the 1980s. At the end of the Second World War, Wilhelm Reich introduced American readers to some of his earlier writings under the title The Sexual Revolution (1945). Explaining that this revolution went to the roots of human emotional, social, and economic existence, he presented himself as a radical (from Latin radix: root), i.e. as a man who examines these roots and who then fearlessly speaks the truth that sets humanity free. The truth, according to Reich, was that Western civilization had made people sick by imposing on them an unnatural, destructive sexual morality. However, thanks to various modern social and scientific upheavals, the natural human life functions were finally awakening after a sleep of thousands of years. The future would restore sexual health and, for the first time, bring full human autonomy. In 19th-century France and Germany several new small revolutions tried to speed up the process of modernization and to expand individual rights, but they failed. Repressive marriage and family laws and the denial of suffrage kept women in their place. Literary censorship hampered the free flow of ideas and kept the public sexually ignorant. Nevertheless, when technological progress made the mass production of condoms possible, many men and women began to plan the size of their families and thus quietly started a contraceptive revolution. As a result, they gained at least some measure of sexual self-determination, even if it remained unrecognized by the state. Eventually, however, the gap between traditional ideology and practical reality grew so wide that a drastic readjustment was all but inevitable. This readjustment was brought about by the First World War which announced the collapse of the rigid old political order. In 1917, when the revolution came to Russia, it expressly inclu ded equal rights for women and universal sexual freedom in its program. Thus, for the first time, a sexual revolution became official government policy. By the same token, in the bourgeois, capitalist societies of the West which are dedicated to individual freedom, the sexual revolution continues. The right to sexual self-determination is considered as important as ever, and, indeed, various sexual liberation groups are working hard to extend it. In the United States, the struggle for an Equal Rights Amendment, legal abortion, the repeal of sodomy, prostitution and obscenity laws, and an end to discrimination against homosexuals are perhaps the best known current examples. At the same time, more and more people also take advantage of those sexual rights that have already been granted. Thus, the movement toward sexual emancipation is still gaining in strength. It is this change in attitude, more than anything else, that amounts to a revolution. Instead of blindly following inherited customs, we now decide for ourselves what sexual activity is proper. Therefore, even if our overt behavior remains the same, it now has a different meaning. We have learned that there are alternatives, that there is nothing eternal or sacred about our sexual morality. We no longer submit to blanket taboos or suspend our judgment. In short, we have become used to questioning the legitimacy of our traditions. At least in this sense, the talk about a sexual revolution is fully justified. We have to remember that significant social changes occur not only when people change what they do. It may be enough that they change the way they think about it. It may be enough that different behaviors become defensible, that moral options develop which did not exist before. The old sexual standards seemed unassailable as long as they were taken for granted. However, today radical changes of all sorts have become conceivable and even plausible to many formerly uncritical men and women. Thus, past and present are no longer reliable guides to the future. Religious dogmas have been replaced by scientific hypotheses, certainties by doubts. At the same time, our choices and responsibilities have increased. There is cause for great joy as well as for great anxiety, in the area of sex, as in so many other areas of life, virtually anything seems to have become possible. b) Why do societies control peoples sexual behavior? Answer: Human sexual activities or human sexual practices or human sexual behavior refers to the manner in which humans experience and express their sexuality. People engage in a variety of sexual acts from time to time, and for a wide variety of reasons. Sexual activity normally results in sexual arousal and physiological changes in the aroused person, some of which are pronounced while others are more subtle. Sexual activity also includes conduct and activities which are intended to arouse the sexual interest of another, such as strategies to find or attract partners (mating and display behavior), and personal interactions between individuals, such as flirting and foreplay. Human sexual activity has psychological, biological, physical and emotional aspects. Biologically, it refers to the reproductive mechanism as well as the basic biological drive that exists in all species and can encompass sexual intercourse and sexual contact in all its forms. Emotional aspects deal with the int ense personal bonds and emotions generated between sexual partners by a sexual activity. Physical issues around sexuality range from purely medical considerations to concerns about the physiological or even psychological and sociological aspects of sexual behavior. In some cultures sexual activity is considered acceptable only within marriage, although premarital and extramarital sex are also common. Some sexual activities are illegal either universally or in some countries, and some are considered against the norms of a society. For example, sexual activity with a person below some age of consent and sexual assault in general are criminal offenses in many jurisdictions. c) How does sexuality play a part in social inequality? Answer: sexuality play an important part in the social inequality such as interpersonal behavior. Day-to-day interaction between women and men perpetuates male dominance. Gender differences in conversational patterns reflect differences in power. Womens speech is more polite than mens. Women end statements with tag questions (dont you agree? you know?). Men are more direct, interrupt more, and talk more, notwithstanding the stereotype that women are more talkative. Males typically initiate interaction with women; they pursue, while females wait to be asked out (Eitzen, 2000:260). Of the issues discussed in this chapter (prostitution, teen pregnancy, pornography, sexual violence and abortion) which do you think is the most important for Malaysian society today? Why? Answer: From the sex video created by Umno to topple Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim right down to the MACC officer caught watching smut in office, Malaysian news now only have one major point to highlight: sex and pornography The production and distribution of pornographic movies are economic activities of some importance. The exact size of the economy of pornography and the influence that it plays in political circles are matters of controversy. In many countries it is legal to both produce and distribute pornography featuring performers age 18 or older; however there are often restrictions placed upon such material. If we were to stop for a moment and take the time to properly assess the community impact of internet pornography, it would soon become clear that internet pornography is not the height of evil which do-gooder parliamentarians and parental groups profess. Indeed, it is probably one of the main factors contributing to a Professor Damato suggests there are two predominant reasons why an increase in the availability of pornography has led to a reduction in rape. First, using pornographic material provides an easy avenue for the sexually desirous to get it out of their system. Second, Damato points to the so-called Victorian effect. This dates back to the old Victorian era where people covered up their bodies with an immense amount of clothing, generating a greater mystery as to what they looked like naked. Damato suggests that the free availability of pornography since the 1970s, and the recent bombardment of internet pornography, has de-mystified sex, thus satisfying the sexually curious. You may well ask while this positive correlation between an increase in pornography (specifically internet pornography) and a reduction in rape has been demonstrated in the United States, do the statistics in Australia present a similar positive correlation? Ana Mendieta and Jenny Saville: Compare and Contrast Essay Ana Mendieta and Jenny Saville: Compare and Contrast Essay Compare and contrast the work of two contemporary women illustrators or artists. Situate their work in a social and historical context and examine how their work addresses questions of gendered identity. In this essay, I will examine the work of Ana Mendieta and Jenny Saville, two contemporary women artists from two separate movements in history; The Womens Movement of the 1970s, and The Britart Movement of the 1990s. I will compare and contrast the different approaches they take on female subjectivity, and then conclude with whom raises questions of gendered identity the most effectively. Jenny Saville was sprung into the art world when Charles Saatchi famously discovered her work and set her up in a studio to paint more pictures for him to buy. She joined the ranks of other young British artists to be part of the movement known as Britart, an explosion which culminated from media and political hype at that time, namely Cool Brittania. Saville read extensively on the subject of feminist theory, with particular interest on why, as feminist art historian Linda Nochlin pointed out, there have been no great women artists. Her paintings are often compared to old masters Rubens and Courbet, but most usually to contemporary painter Lucien Freud. As such, she is typically described as a New Old Master based on the technical aptitude and sheer scale of her female nudes which are implicitly related to the male-dominated art history. Unlike those male predecessors, Saville paints from a starkly female point of view. Her figures are not the idealised stereotype of beauty painted with the male gaze in mind; their flesh takes on all manner of mottled tones and their bodies are far from erotically posed.The history of art has been dominated by men, living in ivory towers, seeing women as sexual objects. I paint women as most women see themselves. I try to catch their identity, their skin, their hair, their heat, their leakiness. I do have this sense with female flesh that things are leaking out. A lot of our flesh is blue, like butchers meat. In history, pubic hair has always been perfect, painted by men. In real life, it moves around, up your stomach, or down your legs. (Independent interview, 1994) Plan, 1993, a 9ft high nude self portrait, towers above the viewer like a mountain of flesh. The figures arm is drawn across both breasts in a gesture which suggests negativity while the scale of the canvas and perspective makes the body look gargantuan; the contours of the flesh are marked as if Saville is on a hospital trolley waiting for her fat to be sucked out by a cosmetic surgeon. Alison Rowley asks if Saville worries about her size in an article on scale. it would be possible to read as signified by the size of the canvas for Plan Savilles figuration of the psychic dimensions of her own body, as it is constructed at the intersection of her physical body with all those discourses, of the fashion and cosmetics, the diet, health products and plastic surgery industry, that operate to produce the sign desirable feminine body for this culture as something other than her size and shape. The composition of the figure within the frame strengthens this signification: not only does it n eed a canvas 9 x 7 to accommodate it but even then its a squash to get it in. As I understand it, Saville addresses her gender through challenging the expectations placed on women to look good in a male-dominated society. She herself admits I havent had liposuction myself but I did fall for that body wrap thing where they promise four inches off, or your money back. and she states beauty as being the male image of the female body. (Independent Interview, 1994) She frequently uses herself in her images but the exaggerated folds of flesh speak volumes in an age where we are obsessed with our bodies. The standard reaction, particularly from a male view point is to recoil in disgust, prompting us to question how the media has so effectively brainwashed a society to think plastic surgery is normal; when in fact the horrifying reality is that women now feel a desperate sense of urgency to have their bodies prodded, probed and sliced in the name of beauty. By materializing the abject female body, Saville reveals what lurks in the feminine imagination. That is to say, by representing a specific idea of femininity, she speaks to the disparity between the way that many women feel about their bodies and the reality of how those bodies are perceived by others. Michelle Meagher. Jenny Saville and a Feminist Aesthetics of Disgust. Page 34 Jenny Savilles monumental paintings speak up for women with a strong political message for the age we live in. She pushes her brilliant and relentless embodiment of our worst anxieties about our own corporeality and gender Nochlin, Linda 2000. Floating in Gender Nirvana. Art in America 88. Page 97) with shocking reality and is a testament to how history and society has shaped us. In the series Closed Contact, Saville took a diversion from paint to collaborate with fashion photographer Glen Luchford. The resulting grotesquely distorted self-portraits were achieved via manipulation of the flesh upon a plane of perspex. The same strikingly similar effects were created in a work entitled Glass on Body from 1972 by the artist Ana Mendieta. She, as Saville, manipulated her face, breasts, hips, thighs and buttocks against a sheet of glass, thus interpreting her body as sculpture to provocative effect. Saville refers to her body as a prop, saying in an interview with Elton John Its like loaning my body to myself. So the flesh becomes like a material. In the photographs the flesh was like paint. Those pictures all came out of my exposure to plastic surgery. I worked with this plastic surgeon in New York for quite a few months, and I saw all of this manipulation of flesh and liposuction and surgeons fists moving around inside breasts. (Interview. Elton John. October 20 03.) I think a reference to Mendietas manipulation of her own malleable flesh against the glass and the resulting carnivalesque perversion of her once recognizable figure turn body art toward such feminist issues as the normative construction of beauty and the female body as monstrous other. Blocker, Jane Where is Ana Mendieta? Identity, Performativity, and Exile (Durham: Duke University Press, 1999) P.11 is an equally appropriate understanding of Savilles art. Anna Mendieta emerged during the womans art movement of the 1970s. Being exiled from her native country of Cuba when she was 12 years old resulted in feelings of displacement, and she addressed issues of cultural identity as well as her gender through performance and body art. Unlike Saville, who traditionally uses paint in a realist sense, Mendieta explored these relatively new mediums when she realized my paintings were not real enough for what I wanted the image to convey and by real I mean I wanted my images to have power, to be magic. (Ana Mendieta: Pain of Cuba, Body I Am Kaira M. Cabanas Womans Art Journal, Vol. 20, Page 12) While dealing with taboo subject matter she could directly change the male gaze from one customarily of desire and give a voice to the female nude that for centuries before did not have one. In a performance in 1972, Mendieta had a male friend shave off his facial hair as she applied the pieces to her face, thus assuming the symbols of male identity. Savi lle addressed the same issue with Passage, 2004, which features a transvestite between genders.Thirty or forty years ago this body couldnt have existed and I was looking for a kind of contemporary architecture of the body. I wanted to paint a visual passage through gender a sort of gender landscape. (Saatchi Gallery) Although both artists focus on the female body, Mendieta used her own for every art piece she created and, unlike Saville, she took her work out of the studio. Her Siluetas series combined issues of race and identity when she left imprints of her body in the landscape. These earth-body sculptures were created with natural materials such as flowers, earth, fire and blood and, as with most of her works, were linked to the rituals of Santeria, a religion that grew out of the slave trade in Cuba and which Mendieta studied to get back to her roots. The Siluetas seem to change form and shape from one to the other, and some take on the exaggerated appearance of a vagina, the uniquely female thing that appears central to most feminist art. by creating a fusion with nature, Mendieta affirms, through their common fertility, a feminine specificity. The Earth-mother in this respect constitutes an all powerful, truly mythical generality, in which Mendietas body literally melts, and in a certain s ense becomes lost; the affirmation of a collective identity so clearly implying the dissolution of personal identity. Creissels, Anne From Leda to Daphne, Sacrifice and Virginity in the Work of Ana Mendieta in The Sacred and the Feminine, Imagination and Sexual Difference, ed. By Griselda Pollock and Victoria Turvey Sauron (London: I.B.Tauris, 2007) p. 183 The problem is that women working with nature is regarded as a uniquely feminine approach and has the disadvantage of contributing to the perpetuation of a system of domination founded on the opposition of the sexes. Creissels, Anne From Leda to Daphne, Sacrifice and Virginity in the Work of Ana Mendieta in The Sacred and the Feminine, Imagination and Sexual Difference, ed. By Griselda Pollock and Victoria Turvey Sauron (London: I.B.Tauris, 2007) p. 183 An earlier work from 1973, Rape Scene, was a performance in which Mendieta smeared herself in blood and tied herself face down on a table to be discovered by colleagues she had invited to her apartment. It dealt with violence against the female body and aimed to expose the violence and control that can lie behind the (male) gaze, which for them (us) is neither novel nor escapable. (Where is Ana Mendieta? Jane Blocker. Page 15) A photograph documenting the scene appears remarkably as if intended to look like forensic evidence. Blood was frequently used in Mendietas performances to spark controversy. A Self-portrait from 1973 shows Mendieta with blood running down her face as she looks down into the lens of the camera. This compares with a piece by Saville entitled Reverse, in which the artists head is shown sideways on a reflective surface. Both Mendietas and Savilles faces look bloodied and brutal, as though they had been beaten up. The eyes in both are empty and listless. Lips are parted. The depiction of Savilles face in Reverse as swollen and scabbed actually comes from her fascination with plastic surgery and the women who underwent such operations. However, she would never call her paintings self-portraits as she is not interested in the outward personality. I dont use the anatomy of my face because I like it, not at all. I use it because it brings out something from inside, a neurosis. (Under the skin, The Guardian, Suzie Mackenzie, 22/10/2005) Ana Mendieta and other artists involved with the womans art movement did accomplish a lot by breaking the boundaries and bringing to light the injustices women have to bear just for being female thus establishing a place for womens art. The visual language raised by Mendieta in her performances had an ethereal poignancy reflecting her traumatic childhood experience. However, as other female artists of the era were creating art with their bodies while spiritually bonding with nature it was easy to term them as Goddess Artists Edelson, Mary Beth, Male Grazing: An Open Letter to Thomas McEvilley in Feminisim-Art-Theory, an Anthology 1968-2000, ed. By Hilary Robinson (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2001)P.593 a category they vehemently objected to, but nonetheless, creating giant vaginas and frolicking naked in the leaves can detract from the serious feminist angle. Jenny Savilles art cannot be taken anything but seriously. Her uniquely female perspective of nude women which have historic ally been painted by men for centuries begs the question, has a patriarchal art history defined beauty? The expectations placed on women to look a certain way are crushingly everywhere. The female form is nothing but an object of desire for the very men that moulded this ideal and the women who desire that unattainable ideal. In a society where women are controlled via a visual media which has evolved from pictures made by man, Saville has opened my eyes to the rituals I perform in the upkeep of being female. In contrast, Mendietas ritualistic performances, although captivating and thought provoking, seem more about self-cleansing and embedded in the spiritual to compete with men in a patriarchal art world.

The Oppression of Caliban in The Tempest Essay -- Tempest essays

The Oppression of Caliban in The Tempest William Shakespeare's, "The Tempest," provides insight into the hierarchy of command and servitude by order of nature. This play uses the relationship between its characters to display the control of the conqueror over the conquered. It also shows how society usually places the undesirable members at the bottom of the chain of command, even though they may be entitled to a higher social status. For example, the beginning of the play opens with a scene on a boat in the midst of a terrible storm. The boatswain, who is under the command of the royal party, attempts to keep the boat from sinking. Members of the royal party, however, persist in interfering with his duties. The boatswain retorts, "What cares these roarers for the name of the king? To cabin! Silence! Trouble us not"(I, I, 16-18). He is trying to warn his superiors that if he does not let him do his job, everyone will die, and it will not matter who has power over whom. The superiors, however, still take offense to this comment and label him a blasphemer. Caliban, an unfortunate character in this play, suffers from similar constant abuse because he is of the lowest social rank in his community. Critic John W. Draper describes Caliban's position in relation to the other characters when he says,      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   "Of all the characters in Shakespeare, Caliban is the   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     most fully and repeatedly/ described, though not always   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     consistently; and his bodily parts seem to show little/   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     relation to his humor or his character except that both   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     are monstrous. Monsters/ were popular; and, as Trinculo   Ã‚  Ã‚  ... ... "Monster Caliban.."Caliban. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishing, 1992. 89-94. Evans, G. Blakemore. Ed. The Riverside Shakespeare. by William Shakespeare. 1552- 1616. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1974. Leininger, Lorie Jerrell. "The Miranda Trap: Sexism and Racism in Shakespeare's Tempest." The Tempest: Critical Essays.Ed. Patrick M. Murphy. New York:   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Routledge, 2001. 223-229. Smith, James. "Caliban." Caliban. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishing, 1992. 124-150. Vaughan, Virginia Mason. "Caliban's Theatrical Metamorphoses." Caliban. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishing, 1992. 192-206. Vaughan, Alden T. & Virginia Mason. "Shakespeare's Caliban: A Cultural History." New York: University Press, 1991. Wilson, Daniel, LL.D. "Caliban: The Missing Link." London: Macmillan and Co., 1873.