Throughout the course of this past semester we have studied quite a bit in regards to the trials, tribulations, and difficulties that woman have had to overcome while breaking into the workforce over the past 20 to 50 years. Now granted over this time period women were very instrumental in many different career fields, however, breaking into the justice field has been a lot more difficult for them. We have see many case studies of women wanting to become involved however, not doing so as they feel it was too tough of a career for them. There are also many other opinions that have been given as well for them not getting involved with this career field. Now when going through the recent course material I can recall many different items of why the number of women that are involved in our justice system seems to be so low; first off women becoming lawyers is something that takes a very special women to do. You must have thick skin, and decent head on your shoulders and willing to take quite a bit of criticism it seems from male colleagues. Even though there are laws out there on the books that will protect us from job discrimination based on gender and harassment, it’s a lot more difficult for a women to actually report a colleague that this is occurring to them. We have heard many stories throughout the course of the semester regarding the difficulties that women have had to deal with while working in the justice field. With the recent publication by Holly English she has really been able to shed some light of the difficulties that women who become lawyers may have. Between the balancing of the long hours due to being a lawyer, to the time of trying to actually balance a home life and kids. We have to make sure that women are able to handle all things at hand. Her proposal to given women and men the equal right and change while practicing law is what would be best. Even though women may take on more responsibility in the home, they still are plenty capable of having a rewarding career as an attorney.
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Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Blog 38
With everything that our country deals with there are always though how help break things out of the normal cycle that they are in. It seems that our country gets into a certain path that allows for us to get very comfortable within that certain area, which in turn becomes primary and then to break out of the cycle becomes a huge event that can take a numerous about of years to overcome. A personal story that comes to my mind is with the state of Arizona. The internal justice commission that governs most of the states internal audits was always ran by men. I am fortunate enough to say that my grandmother was the first woman to ever run that department prior to her retirement in 1998. Being able to say that someone within my family was able to break barriers like that is nothing short of amazing! Another very remarkable woman in my opinion is the Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. She was the first woman to sit on the Supreme Court Justice and has a lot of ground breaking under her belt as well. I think something that is really cool as well is for the residents of Arizona. Prior to her election into the Supreme Court she was one to sit on the bench here in Arizona. That’s very special recognition for our state as well. Other women that has made quite a bit of ground for our court system is Ruth Joan Bader Ginsburg. She is the second women to sit on the bench following the election of Sandra Day O’Connor. She herself has made quite a bit of headway as well within our justice system as well. A majority of her career was centered on the advocacy of equal citizenship status for both men and women. She is a strong believer in equal rights, and used that philosophy quite a bit when making rulings on her cases. Both of these women I feel are individuals that have helped pave the way for future women to enter into the justice system. Like I said earlier, in everything that occurs when something is outside the norm it takes someone to break that norm to start a change, these two women in my opinion have done just that.
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Blog 37
The American Bar Association released a report regarding the difficulties women are having with becoming fully integrated within our justice system. There was documentation within this large publication that goes into great detail regarding the changes that are occurring within the profession, however, large concerns given the fact that some sort of other action needs to be taken instead of just waiting for time to try and take over this sort of thing. In 1988 the American Bar Association released its landmark report detailing the difficulties that women are having within the justice profession. They at that time were trying to determine what exactly needed to occur to have this profession become more equal in regards to the gender that was sitting in these positions. They wanted to find out mainly what the issue was. When reviewing what one of the main reasons that this sort of thing was occurring it was mainly contributed to the attitudes that were given by already practicing male attorneys. The older more tenured attorneys had this hostile attitude towards women coming into practice law. They were mixed opinions as to why, however, what it really comes down to was the fact that many male attorneys felt they were not strong enough to engage in this sort of employment position. Now given this information the report still showed in increase in women obtaining and achieving jobs in this profession. Statistical analysis shows that from 1988 to 2003 the increase in women going to law school had gone from 22% up to 47% on average. Another interesting fact were women who became general counsel for fourteen 500 companies went from 5.9 to 23.1% either way both of those facts are outstanding improvements to a getting to a more gender equal position. Holly English as well touched on many of these points. The fact that women deal with a lot of discrimination within these sorts of positions really give them a bad taste in their mouth not keeping them around very long in the private practice side of things as a lot more women tend to sit on general counsel boards for large companies.
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Blog 36
As we have gone through many changes in our country over the past few years. One thing is definitely prevalent of occurring. We prior to this past election have never seen a women run in some sort of faction of the position highest in politics in our Country. Last year’s election during the democratic primaries you had Hilary Clinton running for the seat of president against Barak Obama. This was quite a race either way as you essentially had an African American and a Women running for seat that was normally battled for between two white men. Now on the other hand you also had a female (Sarah Palin) running with John McCain as the vice president nominee. Either way both of these were very interesting cases as there had never been any sort of women running for these elected positions to begin with. Now that we have had two women run for the highest position in our political system what is so different? You would think by this occurring it opens up things to allow for women to run at any stage or work at any level in our country correct? Now granted – when looking at other extremely high positions in Corporate America you have many that do not make it all the way to the top. The analogy used for this sort of situation is called the “glass ceiling.” Many women feel that they are only able to make it to a certain level and then that they cannot go any further. Why is that? Well many factors come into play. One of the biggest reasons that I hear about is that women feel the need to still be evolved with their family a little bit more. When hitting those very high level executive positions you usually are taken away from your family quite a bit. However, I remember doing a research paper a few years back about women in Corporate America who in turn they usually do not hold high level positions until their children are grown up and out of the home. This in my opinion makes sense as they would have nothing to do after their children are grown and out of the home as women are by nature nurtures.
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Blog 35
Recently a new set of recommendations were sent out by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission regarding “best practices” that companies should follow when it comes to care taking. In the article Care taking is described as someone who has the responsibility of take care of either a child or an aging parent/grandparent. In the article they focus on the constraints that occur for individuals that need to take care of another person. With trying to balance work along with family it can become quite difficult. Now that the overall working population consists of 46% of women something like this needed to be published for individuals and businesses to refer to. When thinking about this sort of thing, it definitely needs to be considered what kinds of individuals are affected. As we move more and more down the road of our current recession, the article points out a great point in my opinion. Women more and more are becoming breadwinners of the home. The reason for this is during the current recession a lot of the positions that have been effected were investment bankers and construction workers; which as we know both positions are mainly fulfilled by male employers. This sort of flexibility has been recommended for quite some time by the different government agencies. I know that more and more of them are recommending flex locations allowing people to work from home or out of remote offices that may be closer to home. I can say that because of these recommendations it has helped my family out quite a bit. Prior to last May, my other had to care for my grandma as she had the highest stage of ALS possible. With this disease she dealt with taking her too many doctor appointments, along with having to care for her on many different levels. Because of this flexibility she was able to move her schedule around and help accommodate the needs of her mother. I am definitely a big fan of the program mainly because of that.
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Blog 34
During this past election our country overcame history in a lot more ways than one. First off, we had an African American run for president which in the end he ended up winning. However, we also had another large stepping stone as well we had two women involved in the running for some of the highest seats in offices as well. We had Hilary Clinton who was running for the democratic seat in the presidential election, who in turn ended up losing in the primaries to our now current president Barack Obama. As well as we had Sara Palin who ran with Senator John McCain as his vice presidential candidate. These two women have helped to break quite a bit of barriers that have been put in place for a quite a while in the political system. For the longest time to get into politics, the standard was that it was always a male. Now that we are becoming more and more equal between private and elected positions we are starting to see women break into these career fields that have always been so customarily locked by the male population. Now another item that was discussed in the course material was the advancement of women in the justice system. We are seeing more women continue to populate these fields as well. I remember reading an article that was discussing the departure of Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. When she was getting ready to leave the bench, the discussion of who was going to take her position started to take place. During that time period a national poll was ran, who intern 80% of them thought another woman should take her place. Well in the mist of the article, people were saying that they felt more women should be on the Supreme Court. I personally believe we should be taking individuals that are most qualified for these positions, and not base them off of their gender.
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Blog 33
The advancement of woman in our justice system is nothing short of amazing. It was not very long ago that anything related to the justice field was nothing but men. They would be the ones that were sitting on the judge’s bench. They were the ones you would contact when you needed legal advice. They were the ones you spoke with when you needed an attorney. The justice system was just run by men. Fast forward to today and you still deal with many men in our justice system it still quite a bit of a ratio of men to women, however, the presence of women in the justice system is becoming more and more prevalent. As our country moves continuously moves forward to a more equal bipartisan type view on employment and gender women will continue to make an impact and overall movement into the justice field for a career. Now to this day even though they are moving and making more of an approach into the career they still have quite a few boundaries that they have to deal with. One of the biggest deals that they have the face is those attorneys who still think they are not capable of doing the job of an attorney. There are many old school attorneys out there that think just because they are a female they are not cut out for this sort of work. I remember reading about an attorney who was fired multiple times from many different practices. The reason she was fired was because she was not forceful enough when dealing with cases. She knew her job very well, she could manage and handle things very well but when it came down to it she was not able to stand up to her clients at times even when deciding it was in the best interest of them, and they were wanting to go the other way. Either way, they have come a long way but still have a lot of challenges ahead of them in this field of work.
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Blog 32
We all know that the decision to become a parent is something that takes a lot of planning, decision making, and overall preparedness. I am pretty sure that everyone at some point or another in their life wants to be a parent to a child. Knowing that you have brought a child into this world is something that gives one such gratification, and a lot of enjoyment as you gets to watch them grow, learn and mature into a young man or woman. Now back in the day, it was a lot easier to plan for children. The reason behind that was usually the father was the one to go out to work, make the money for the family and would bring these goods back to the home. While on the other hand the women “mother” would be the one that would stay home with the children, help them with homework, learning, overall child development, etc. Now fast forward to today. Things are definitely a lot different. It’s now not uncommon to see both parties actually out there working and bringing a paycheck home due to the cost of living that we all deal with. Now when thinking of becoming a lawyer a lot of dedication comes along with that; you have to be quite committed as a business partner/owner of the practice. With that, lawyers in the family would more then likely be the breadwinner of the family. So in turn males usually do not have the wives working when they are a lawyer as they can bring home enough money to support the family. While on the other hand women who are lawyers a lot of times have to give a little bit more towards the family so many times find themselves getting behind in work, and cannot give as much time to the practice as they still need to help play a vital role in the raising of their family. That’s why usually women lawyers do not become as high profile as family plays a lot more important of a role to them then it usually does to the male side of the house.
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Blog 31
Working in the legal profession is usually a very rewarding career however, at times you can be very much what I like to call married to your job. The amount of time, dedication, hours, and commitment that are needed to the career is something that anything thinking about getting involved with really needs to consider. We all know that when working in the legal field the pay benefit can be somewhat very lucrative depending on the position that you get into. Yet, a lot of times people do not understand the commitment of time and the amount of work that is also associated with the position. Either way the benefits are amazing. Now when thinking about getting into the legal profession many times individuals enter knowing about these sort of things – the long hours, the stress of working the large case, the continuous phone calls, being pretty much always on call, etc. However, they choose to still take the job. Along with when getting into the legal profession, I have heard that many people enter into it as a single individual the amount of time that it takes prior to getting yourself setup is something that everyone must do. Law school is not the only intense three years of your life, also the different types of people that you deal with along with the different types of studying that is needed. Either way the outcome is definitely a rewarding one. Some of the other items that I remember hearing about is that you usually when entering into the legal field have to make sure that you have individuals around you that are understanding of the schedule that goes along with this sort of position, getting into a relationship or trying to start a family with someone that does not have the general understanding of the schedule, long hours, or stressful stints could have a short relationship ahead of them.
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Blog 30
After reviewing the article from the NPR community website it was very interesting to understand why the statistics are so low of their being minority women that work or have partial ownership of these law firms that we usually frequent on a regular. The impression that I have always had was that lawyers were usually law abiding citizens, you never think that they would be the ones that are discriminative against others, judge others by their skin color or their nationality that is other than from what we have in the united states. It seems that in our law firms, which we all know usually consist of white males are being so judgmental, harmful, and just plain disrespectful. However, they are doing this very thing to women who are of different nationality and involved with our justice system. Either way it’s something that is very sad to see and must stop. In the article that was presented to us there was a story of a women lawyer who was Korean, one of her male colleges called her into his office as he was dealing with a Korean client the lawyer looked at her and started talking gibberish which in turn really was trying to be him speaking Chinese or Korean. After he confronted him in front of the client by introducing herself to the client in English she went back to her office. While at her desk, on their internal messaging system, something close to an instant message on her computer popped up with a whole bunch of gibberish of numbers and letters. This was supposed to be the lawyer trying to talk Chinese again to her. This in my opinion is just plain disrespectful. However, it goes along with the book. Holly English touches on the same sort of scenarios regarding the constraints those women lawyers deal with in the practice. Here these lawyers are supposed to be their colleges and it’s almost like they are their enemies.
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Blog 29
After reviewing the article from the NPR community website it was very interesting to understand why the statistics are so low of their being minority women that work or have partial ownership of these law firms that we usually frequent on a regular. The impression that I have always had was that lawyers were usually law abiding citizens, you never think that they would be the ones that are discriminative against others, judge others by their skin color or their nationality that is other than from what we have in the united states. It seems that in our law firms, which we all know usually consist of white males are being so judgmental, harmful, and just plain disrespectful. However, they are doing this very thing to women who are of different nationality and involved with our justice system. Either way it’s something that is very sad to see and must stop. In the article that was presented to us there was a story of a women lawyer who was Korean, one of her male colleges called her into his office as he was dealing with a Korean client the lawyer looked at her and started talking gibberish which in turn really was trying to be him speaking Chinese or Korean. After he confronted him in front of the client by introducing herself to the client in English she went back to her office. While at her desk, on their internal messaging system, something close to an instant message on her computer popped up with a whole bunch of gibberish of numbers and letters. This was supposed to be the lawyer trying to talk Chinese again to her. This in my opinion is just plain disrespectful. However, it goes along with the book. Holly English touches on the same sort of scenarios regarding the constraints those women lawyers deal with in the practice. Here these lawyers are supposed to be their colleges and it’s almost like they are their enemies.
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Blog 28
After reading the article about the potential nomination of Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court it truly does not surprise me with the issues that have been pointed out in the article. She seems like a very nice lady when she is outside of the court however; there are too many things that concern republican citizens such as me. Some of the ways that she rules in her court decisions a lot of times appear to be very biased. She is someone that is very into with individuals on the ‘shorter’ end of the stick in my opinion. She likes to help the underdog win. Now one thing that definitely frustrates me when new media get their grimy little hands on information is the way that they will twist, turn, and spit things out about certain subjects or individuals What I mean by this is the article gave a lot of false accusations, they miss construed a lot of information that was listed in the article and really turned it against Ms. Sotomayor. When a lot of individuals found out that she was nominated yes, the country really went into an uproar on one side, while on the other side it was the best thing that could happen since sliced bread. Mainly a lot of people really wanted this as she would have been the first Hispanic female to hold a chair on the highest level that our court had to offer the citizens of this country. One thing that they really focused on was her temperament. A lot of times people that would go through her court would try and challenge her a lot. The speculation around this was that she was someone who did not like her authority to be questioned. Now if you were one to do this sort of thing, you would definitely pay for it in one faction or another.
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Blog 27
As I come down to my final semester of my Justice Studies degree I feel that I have studied quite a bit about the different types of law in our constitution, however, with that research we have also reviewed quite a bit the different types of positions that are available to individuals that want to be involved with the law, and the many different factions that come along with it. One of the biggest reviews that I remember is the different types of lawyers that are out in our country these days. Some get into practicing law because they have a strong feeling about a certain subject. Some may get into law because they have the want to help under privileged individuals. Some get into law, because they want to make sure that people who commit crimes on our Countries soil are able to see the proper side of justice. Then there is probably the most noticeable, those individuals that get into being a lawyer because they want to make money, these would be the individuals that we like to call defense attorneys. Now when defense attorneys step foot into a courtroom it really comes down to being a no holds bard. They are willing to do anything needed to make sure that their client wins. Most of the time it really is to make sure their clients do not get charged with what the original charges are; with that, when you have defense attorneys going against a female lawyer a lot of time they may work at trying to use their male dominance against them to help establish a sort of intimidation so that they can win the case for their client. Either way it usually is very a cheap shot and very immature, but like me said earlier a defense attorney has two things on their priority list. One to win for their client, two to make a lot of money.
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Blog 26
As we all know it has been more recent than before to see women practicing law. 30-50 years ago the thought of a women becoming a lawyer was just something that you did not see. It wasn’t a matter of if they could or could not do it. It was more about the time period of modesty, and how families were brought up. During those times men would be the ones that went to work, made the money needed for the family, and then brought that home to the household. While on the other hand, women were the homemakers. The women that would get the kids up in the morning, breakfast for the family and then would see her husband off to work, and her kids off to school. Now that times have changed, mainly because this society is no longer a one salary job that in turn can support both sides of the family; it really does take two incomes in today’s society to support a family. With that many women have gone to school, and worked their way all the way to practicing law. Now since this is still relatively new, many older lawyers feel the need to look over the female lawyers in the practice. Many of the lawyers that have been around quite a bit still have mixed emotions about women practicing law as they tend to usually be a bit more modest and resistant. However, in this position at time you need to be able to step outside that comfortable zone from time to time to go to bat for your client and get the win that they hired you to do. Either way, many male lawyers have stated the need to make sure that they give the backing as sometimes women lawyers need to have that presented to them otherwise they feel they are being over looked.
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Blog 25
There is a saying that is used quite a bit in out country these days. The saying “if you need to get it done, and then sex sells.” Personally that is a very bold statement don’t you think? Why do we need to revert to something that is suppose to be a private act between two individuals to express the highest level of love and affection for one another? Personally, being someone who is very conservative I do not always agree with this sort of action when out in public. Now don’t get me wrong, I wreak a lot of benefits from individuals who decide to go ahead and advertise in this sort of faction. Personally it’s something that I really enjoy. Now shift gears here for a second and turn to the work place, truly is sex something that really needs to be sold while in the work place? Do we really need to revert to this sort of activity and behavior when we are with our coworkers in regards to trying to get something done? As sad as it sounds its something that does happen while out in the workforce. Now the unfortunate thing too is that it usually is a male conducting this sort of activity, and a female that it’s being conducted against. Now from time to time, women will report the violations to the appropriate areas however, more times than not they will not report it. I was reading a case study that had a women being harassed in the work place quite a bit. She took the harassment for years, until finally having a bad day at home prior to getting to the office. Well the actions that took place that day were definitely crossing the line, it was reported, and then the individual was fired. He took the company to court and ended up getting his job back as it was shown that she ‘provoked’ the activity. With that, they had to rehire the individual even though he was clearly at fault here.
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Blog 24
While interviewing a friend of mine who just became a lawyer not too long ago in Washington I really wanted to speak to her about how she dresses, and why does she dress that way. I started off by asking her if she felt if the way that she dressed really had anything to do with the way she conducted herself with her position. She informed me that its one of the biggest things that she contributes her success too. When she dresses in a suite, not only does it make her feel good and confident about herself and the role that she is in, but it also gives off the professional look she said. It’s something that I do mainly for my clients though. I asked why that was; she informed me that it was because when they see you in a suite or dressed professionally its like we are really to beat the world. I thought that was very interesting in putting it in those terms. I asked if there were any differences between the ways she dressed at work compared to the way that she dressed at home. She told me very much so. When at home, she loves to be in pajamas, getting dressed up to the limit for work is a lot of fun, however, its tiring and gets old at times she told me. After asking when you go out of the house is it any different. This answer surprised me, she said no, it’s just not as much. I wanted to know that she meant by that. She told me that you never know when you will meet a potential client, so making sure that you are dressed for success at any point of the day is the key when you are out in public it definitely comes into play quite a bit.
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Blog 23
When it comes to our politician we see them as dressing up in the old fashion way. Until the last 20 years or so it was unheard of to see a woman in politics. However, now and more these days you will they usually are in many different factions of the politics, yet one thing remains the same they all are professionals. So when you are a professional, what would you wear? As a man, it would be expected that you are in a suite usually with a tie, but is not uncommon these days to see a male with a button down shirt and just a blazer on. Now when it comes to women, they tend to get a lot more scrutiny in the way that they dress. Prior to this past election you normally would see a woman that was running in some sort of political faction in a suite. They would always be dressed very conservative, to the point that you really had no attention paid to the way that they were dressed. Now, all of that seemed to have changed after this past election. There was a big stink made during the presidential election over the way that Sarah Palin was dressing. Then during the whole election time period it was breaking news that she spent $150,000.00 dollars on a new wardrobe. However, why doesn’t anyone care about this sort of thing when it actors or actresses doing this? Lastly, one that I found very interesting that also made news when was Mr. McCain’s daughter took a picture of herself while at home, which showed a little bit of cleavage. Who cares, she was at home in the privacy and comfort of her confinements. If she was out in public, as a public figure then I could see making a big deal out of this, however she was not.
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Blog 22
After hearing that Judge Sonya Sotomayor was elected for the Supreme Court I personally did not care. However, after learning more about whom she was, the way she has ruled on pass cases and the direction that she usually goes towards in judging her cases I started to really have second thoughts about if this women truly was someone that was going to be any good for our Supreme court. It appears that I was not the only one that thought this way. There are many articles out there on the internet projecting the concerns people that with her becoming a judge for the highest level of court our country has to offer. When you are a judge on the Supreme Court it is your duty to make sure that you are providing a fair and unbiased decision when you are ruling a case that sits in front of you. Unfortunately you are not allowed to let your personal feelings and emotions take over when giving the overall deciding factor in the case. Otherwise if this was to happen you ultimately would not have anyone to judge the case base on the facts that have been presented, along with matching those facts against the law that our founding fathers and constants have put in place. I reviewed a few cases on the internet that Judge Sotomayor sat on the bench for, and I just say its very apparent that she sometimes lets her personal feelings contradict the law that is on the books, I read one case where in my opinion it was ruled correctly at the circuit level, however, after it touched her bench it was reversed stating that gender discrimination occurred, and for that an extremely large award was placed in favor of the plaintiff who filed the law suit to begin with.
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Saturday, November 7, 2009
Blog Number 21
Being a correctional officer is something that takes a lot of dedication, along with very thick skin. As stated in past article, interviews and various publications correctional officers are usually called every name in the book except for their name. A lot of times dealing with criminals is a very difficult thing. In the mind of many criminals they have nothing to lose, as everything has already been taken away from them. Now with that, what do you do? Some people choose this line of work because of the pay, the benefits and many other examples that go along with it. Now you can see many men dealing with this sort of thing, imagine what a woman goes through when it comes to the same position. In essence many women are not as strong physically as a man is. With that said, it can be argued both ways when it comes to their mental capacity. Some will say men can usually take verbal abuse a lot better than men. Either way, women working in the correctional capacity take a unique woman. However, just because they are women what says they should be targeted easier for sexual crimes and other various abuses. Either way, it’s very prevalent that this occurs a lot more to women then male officers. Because of this Britton suggests more protection and training for these officers. Either way, it’s a known problem that congress seems to not be paying much attention to. Since this is the case what do you do? Officers are promoting more and more to make sure they work as one solid team and to have each other’s back. Watching out for your partner is right now the best form of protection available out there for these officers. We all know the conditions are not always the best in our jails, however, with a lack of funding so jails distribute what the bare minimum of training is for their officers and then put them out into the jail blocks. Either way, you can consider some of the officers fully trained while other may not be all the way up to par. Yet, what do you do right?
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Blog Number 20
The longest hostage situation of all time was sadly in our own backyard 5 years ago. With that, it’s something that has paved the way of quite an overhaul of our prison system. However, what happens when you have women as the prison director then a good ol’ cowboy or more commonly referred to John Wayne? Well you get additional scrutiny from the media, and the additional in-depth wasted tax payer funds that many people think occurred since they had one major goal. That goal was to get the hostage out of there alive. Usually in the past there were times when we would just go for the barge in shoot to kill type scenario, or the sniper shot from many feet away. Either way, the director of Department of Corrections was not going to go that way. With that, no one was hurt and all came out alive.
Britton’s study shows that there are a lot of issues in our prison system with the proactive approach to these sorts of things if they were to occur. This particular situation is a very good example of that statement being something that prisons need to take into consideration. Why is that you say? Well, once the hostage took control, the director, and those involved did not have any maps, layouts, or documents available in regards to the layout of this tower. Because of that, it made things a lot more difficult in regards to trying to save this prison guard. Either way, they did learn from the situation and have already taken measures needed to make sure they have them now.
Now we all know the definition of Affirmative Action, and that with that sort of thing, we have to make sure we do not gender discriminate when it comes to placing guards into different towers, housing units, just based on their gender. If there are female officers that want to work the max security unit if they are properly trained then under A.A. we must give them the same opportunity as any other officer in this unit. However, a lot of times some female officers feel a bit of resentment when it comes to trying to prove that they can perform jobs in these areas. Either way, the officers can work this sort of thing very easily.
With the hostage situation of 2004 it showed the higher up’s that there were a lot of training gaps that were not met in the prison system of DOC. Once this whole situation was over there were test administered to the DOC officers who in turn discovered that there were many officers who were not passing proficiency standards for the department. Instead of firing these individuals additional training was administered and in turn after the program completed all officers are now passing on the proficiency levels needed and required for federal funding of the prisons. Training for the prisons of DOC have also been overhauled and are now looked at being more important than it may have been in the past and looked to more often for making sure officers are prepared and trained for anything.
Britton’s opinion of the correctional officer being a danged position is something that can be portrayed often as something that is very dangerous position. However, what occurs when you have these officers not trained correctly? They become a very big risk not only to other officers, to the department, inmates, and most importantly themselves. With that, they have to make sure get the proper training that is needed to make sure that they can be protected. Being in this position is something that is very dangerous, and with that they are an endangerment to those around them if they do not keep the risk of their job in the back of their mind.
` Overall the hostage takeover of 2004 was something that everyone learned from. With that, you have to take the lessons learned from the longest standoff in the history of the United States, and make the improvements necessary to make sure that you do not have this sort of thing ever happen in your jail again. You also have to think about the preventative maintenance needed to make sure that your jail does not have any other sort of criminal problems. Now, if DOC would have taken some of the recommendations that were described from Britton, it makes me wonder if this hostage situation would have occurred in the first place. However, its something that did in fact happen, so like I said earlier. Take the unfortunate situation, and make sure you do not have something like that happen again in your jail.
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Britton’s study shows that there are a lot of issues in our prison system with the proactive approach to these sorts of things if they were to occur. This particular situation is a very good example of that statement being something that prisons need to take into consideration. Why is that you say? Well, once the hostage took control, the director, and those involved did not have any maps, layouts, or documents available in regards to the layout of this tower. Because of that, it made things a lot more difficult in regards to trying to save this prison guard. Either way, they did learn from the situation and have already taken measures needed to make sure they have them now.
Now we all know the definition of Affirmative Action, and that with that sort of thing, we have to make sure we do not gender discriminate when it comes to placing guards into different towers, housing units, just based on their gender. If there are female officers that want to work the max security unit if they are properly trained then under A.A. we must give them the same opportunity as any other officer in this unit. However, a lot of times some female officers feel a bit of resentment when it comes to trying to prove that they can perform jobs in these areas. Either way, the officers can work this sort of thing very easily.
With the hostage situation of 2004 it showed the higher up’s that there were a lot of training gaps that were not met in the prison system of DOC. Once this whole situation was over there were test administered to the DOC officers who in turn discovered that there were many officers who were not passing proficiency standards for the department. Instead of firing these individuals additional training was administered and in turn after the program completed all officers are now passing on the proficiency levels needed and required for federal funding of the prisons. Training for the prisons of DOC have also been overhauled and are now looked at being more important than it may have been in the past and looked to more often for making sure officers are prepared and trained for anything.
Britton’s opinion of the correctional officer being a danged position is something that can be portrayed often as something that is very dangerous position. However, what occurs when you have these officers not trained correctly? They become a very big risk not only to other officers, to the department, inmates, and most importantly themselves. With that, they have to make sure get the proper training that is needed to make sure that they can be protected. Being in this position is something that is very dangerous, and with that they are an endangerment to those around them if they do not keep the risk of their job in the back of their mind.
` Overall the hostage takeover of 2004 was something that everyone learned from. With that, you have to take the lessons learned from the longest standoff in the history of the United States, and make the improvements necessary to make sure that you do not have this sort of thing ever happen in your jail again. You also have to think about the preventative maintenance needed to make sure that your jail does not have any other sort of criminal problems. Now, if DOC would have taken some of the recommendations that were described from Britton, it makes me wonder if this hostage situation would have occurred in the first place. However, its something that did in fact happen, so like I said earlier. Take the unfortunate situation, and make sure you do not have something like that happen again in your jail.
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Blog Number 19
Media depiction is something that in my opinion has destroyed America. In this day and age where everyone is so busy, we no longer require out children to go outside and play. It seems that the easiest way to keep them occupied is to sit them in front of the television. With that, kids are now being consumed by false imagines and portrayals of what life should be crammed into a 30 minute show. You and I both know that this is not the case. There are a lot of things that go on in life that T.V. could never properly depict. Something that Geena Davis said that really took me for a spin was the statistical data that she was able to provide. The fact that 1/3 of all 3rd graders have been on a diet is just asinine. How in the world could you honestly expect a 3rd grader to be on a diet? Just the fact that these young children need to be on a diet is disgusting. Shame on the parents of those children; I saw that for a few reasons. As a parent you have the responsibility to make sure that your children grow up healthy and active. This obviously is not something that you as a parent have provided your child if they need to be on a diet by the time they are in 3rd grade.
Another interesting aspect of this section was women who are in high level positions that are normally held by men. This is something that we are seeing more and more these days, however, its also something that the older individuals in those positions are having a hard time with. Either way its something that I hope we continue to see. For a few different reasons, women can bring more of a peaceful approach to things that in some positions might be needed. For example, placing women into a commanding position in a jail may be a good thing as they may look for other approached that can be used instead of physical force; since this is something that we are seeing all too often when it comes to inmate confrontations.
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Another interesting aspect of this section was women who are in high level positions that are normally held by men. This is something that we are seeing more and more these days, however, its also something that the older individuals in those positions are having a hard time with. Either way its something that I hope we continue to see. For a few different reasons, women can bring more of a peaceful approach to things that in some positions might be needed. For example, placing women into a commanding position in a jail may be a good thing as they may look for other approached that can be used instead of physical force; since this is something that we are seeing all too often when it comes to inmate confrontations.
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Blog Number 18
When getting into law enforcement or correctional employment it is standard for you to go through a training academy. After the academy you will then enter into on the job training. A lot of times officers will say that they learn way more during this phase of their training then they do during their academy training. Why is this? Well, it gives the officer time to actually experience the job in a true like setting. The position of being a correctional officer can bring something new every single day. However, it’s something that will allow for the officers to always learn something new wither it be training or a new trend that is going on in the jail. With that, a lot of officers express that they are able to utilize past job experiences quite often when it comes to working with the prisoners. Male officers felt that being able to utilize their military experience helped quite a bit, while on the flipside a majority of women who were come from clerical roles felt that their prior work experience had no benefit to them in their new role. Again, I think this is something that shows this job is one that more women have a difficult time getting into as something like this is just another barrier that they have to overcome. Further on in Britton’s study it was discussed as to the difference of male prison to female prisons. Of the guards that were interviewed many of them stated that they would have preferred to have work in the male prisons. Theoretically you would think working in the women prison would be an easier task. However, both male and female guards expressed that they felt better trained and more equipped to handle physical violence, which is what usually occurs in male prisons. Compared to emotional breakdowns or violence when usually occurs in the female prisons. Either way, both expressed that this sort of thing happens more in the female prisons then it does in the male prisons. One of the thoughts of why this occurs more in the female prisons is because they have a little more freedom then the male population has in their environment.
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Blog Number 17
As we have come to see life behind the bars is nothing fun. The harsher the crime the more difficult life becomes while behind bars, as well as the aging on your body is a more of a rapid pace. With that, when given a sentence of 10,20,30 years or even life in prison you have to make the best with the situation that has been given to you along with you have to have the ability to satisfy certain desires that come with life. However, what do you do when something like that occurs? Well when put into prison since you are not able to co-mingle with other inmates of the opposite sex, you find inmates exploring with individuals of the same sex to satisfy those desires.
During many of the interviews the inmates were not gay or lesbian they were just merely trying to satisfy a desire that they had a strong urge to satisfy. However, when building relationships with other inmates this can pose a great problem to the guards. Its bad enough that usually these prisoners do not care of getting into additional trouble or causing harm to officers. When two or more of them form relationships they usually will do whatever is necessary to help each other out. Another fact that comes into play is when you have the inmates apart from the individuals that they have a relationship with. This happens often as usually they will go past the boundaries that are allowed by the prison which in turn causes for the inmates to receive some sort of punishment, which can lead to a physical/emotional breakdown.
When the officers were interviewed about the inmates that they were dealing with many of them expressed their assumptions of the prisoners that they deal with. Usually they are projected to be very dangerous, and handled that way. Now what is shown on television to what actually occurs in our prisons is completely different then what usually goes on. With that, officers will always have their guard up and secure themselves before the do the prisoners. Something that you and I probably would never have thought of would have been the use of the officer’s first name. Other officers only call each other by their last names. The officers first name will never be shared with inmates. Something this small they have to watch out for. That personally to me is a great security measure, however, nothing that I would have thought of offhand.
After watching the video’s along with other studies that I have completed involving prisons really gives quite amount of kudos to minority officers. As much as you would like to think that racism no longer exists, its something that they take from inmates all of the time. Inmates will use this sort of name calling as a tactic to try and develop masculinity over the guards. Now on the other side of that many of the officers also have said that it helps them sometimes when dealing with prisoners that come from the same minority. Why? Well, they are able to use the tactic of being from the same group which it turn portrays that they can relate to some of the experiences that the inmate may be dealing with.
Just like in every other profession prison guards are nothing different to when it comes to forming an opinion of someone. During Britton’s interview they had many different opinions of the inmates. Some of them played more of the rehabilitative type. They wanted to help them get out of prison to become a better person. While on the other hand some of the officers though they were the scum of the earth. Feeling that we gave them too many luxuries (including power), those officers felt that they should not have any amenities provided to them. They were a lower class of individuals that would never be able to have any moral good for our society. Usually these opinions were formed by older prison guards that had become immune to inmates trying to intimidate them. They in a way become jaded to only seeing bad individuals come through their prisons.
Overall in the films, texts and from past research its very clear that officers who treat inmates as humans receive greater respect from the inmates. Yes, many of them made mistakes. A lot of times when once the inmates are aware of there mistake they usually are able to rehabilitate themselves in prison because they are taken out of the bad areas that are influencing them. Now, while in there it seems that more of the groups have more interest in making sure things are not kosher, and that causing ruckus is something that everyone enjoys doing. Either way officers that provide more respect to the inmates usually receive it back two fold and have less to deal with on their shift.
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During many of the interviews the inmates were not gay or lesbian they were just merely trying to satisfy a desire that they had a strong urge to satisfy. However, when building relationships with other inmates this can pose a great problem to the guards. Its bad enough that usually these prisoners do not care of getting into additional trouble or causing harm to officers. When two or more of them form relationships they usually will do whatever is necessary to help each other out. Another fact that comes into play is when you have the inmates apart from the individuals that they have a relationship with. This happens often as usually they will go past the boundaries that are allowed by the prison which in turn causes for the inmates to receive some sort of punishment, which can lead to a physical/emotional breakdown.
When the officers were interviewed about the inmates that they were dealing with many of them expressed their assumptions of the prisoners that they deal with. Usually they are projected to be very dangerous, and handled that way. Now what is shown on television to what actually occurs in our prisons is completely different then what usually goes on. With that, officers will always have their guard up and secure themselves before the do the prisoners. Something that you and I probably would never have thought of would have been the use of the officer’s first name. Other officers only call each other by their last names. The officers first name will never be shared with inmates. Something this small they have to watch out for. That personally to me is a great security measure, however, nothing that I would have thought of offhand.
After watching the video’s along with other studies that I have completed involving prisons really gives quite amount of kudos to minority officers. As much as you would like to think that racism no longer exists, its something that they take from inmates all of the time. Inmates will use this sort of name calling as a tactic to try and develop masculinity over the guards. Now on the other side of that many of the officers also have said that it helps them sometimes when dealing with prisoners that come from the same minority. Why? Well, they are able to use the tactic of being from the same group which it turn portrays that they can relate to some of the experiences that the inmate may be dealing with.
Just like in every other profession prison guards are nothing different to when it comes to forming an opinion of someone. During Britton’s interview they had many different opinions of the inmates. Some of them played more of the rehabilitative type. They wanted to help them get out of prison to become a better person. While on the other hand some of the officers though they were the scum of the earth. Feeling that we gave them too many luxuries (including power), those officers felt that they should not have any amenities provided to them. They were a lower class of individuals that would never be able to have any moral good for our society. Usually these opinions were formed by older prison guards that had become immune to inmates trying to intimidate them. They in a way become jaded to only seeing bad individuals come through their prisons.
Overall in the films, texts and from past research its very clear that officers who treat inmates as humans receive greater respect from the inmates. Yes, many of them made mistakes. A lot of times when once the inmates are aware of there mistake they usually are able to rehabilitate themselves in prison because they are taken out of the bad areas that are influencing them. Now, while in there it seems that more of the groups have more interest in making sure things are not kosher, and that causing ruckus is something that everyone enjoys doing. Either way officers that provide more respect to the inmates usually receive it back two fold and have less to deal with on their shift.
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Blog Number 16
In Britton’s study when comparing the difference between both male and females about how they became correctional officers is quite drastically different. To begin men that become prison guards usually wanted to enter into law enforcement however, they were unable to get into that profession. This in turn was the next best thing for them to get into. The study that was performed 44% of the guards that were interviewed had previous military experience while only 7% of the females had military experience. This is quite a difference as the job of a guard has a lot of similarities to those employment positions that were in the military. Now males usually come from the military a large portion of the women that were interviewed 37% come from some sort of clerical or secretarial type job. While there was not a single male in this study that reported previous work experience of this kind. One thing that was pretty much said by all of the women in the study was that this job was taken as a last resort and they all had some sort of hesitation about the position and taking the job. Now a few interesting comments that I thought were a bit different was the information that was given from the daycare providers. They said it almost felt as if they did not have much of a difference between taking care of both children and inmates, and that this felt somewhat the same. Overall when it came to the training it was the same for both women and men officers. Women officers felt in some areas that they had a little more to offer in regards to diffusing a situation as they are often able to take more of that motherly approach. Women usually also take the stance of trying to verbally diffuse a situation while male officers usually take a physical stance. This is one of the biggest things that still give this job more of a ‘masculine’ stance. Either way, women these days are becoming more and more in the scene of being a correctional officer. They are continuously hiring women officers; it’s just a matter of squashing the preconceived notion that is portrayed on TV of the difficult life that goes on it the prisons. Honestly if that much crime occurred in our prison system as television portrays it would be extremely difficult to run a prison system.
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Blog Number 15
Women working in our prision have become quite greater in today’s day and age then it was just 20 years ago. Current women are working in all factions of our prison system. The most common job these days in the prison is to be a guard. Women usually are guards in women prison yards, while men are usually just in male yards. Now there are instances that men do need to be cover, or are assigned to a female yard while the same thing happens and women guards are assigned to all male yards. Usually the first situations occur more than the latter situation. Now why is that do you think? Why is it that women are not as often assigned to a male yard? Well personally I think that a lot of it has to deal with the protection and safety of that female officer. Males are naturally stronger and bigger than females, now there is nothing saying that a female cannot defend herself, however, why put your officers in that situation if they do not have to be? Now as much as very recently women in our prison systems were able to promote into management or executive levels. Why is that though? Well, it partially has to deal with the amount of time it has taken women to break into this career. For the longest time it was sought after those women were not able to work in this sort of profession because they were not able to handle themselves and would have a hard time with this sort of position, a lot also came into question regarding if they could properly protect themselves. Well, as these barriers are broken down one by one they are slowing making headway. I personally think that women are able to work this sort of position, now if the more stubborn males would just jump on board with me.
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Blog Number 14
In today’s day and age gender organization is something that we continue to work through as we work for equal rights. As we come more into this society of equal rights and that ‘everyone should have the same rights or offers afforded to them’ mentality we have gotten more away of actual gender organizations and what they truly represent. For example, why do I a 23 year old white male need to become part of some sort of African American club? Is this heritage in my family blood line? No. Now this situation is not uncommon for us to see, so why do we feel the need to go about this sort of route and join these sorts of culture clubs? Well, a lot of it I think has to do with people wanting to be able to say, I told you so! It goes the same for gender organization. There is no reason for me a male to join an organization that is female driven/geared for. Now on the flip side of things, why is it such a big deal for a women to be denied from an all male club, or from a job that is mainly populated by males but on the flipside you usually never hear of men complaining that they are not able to get a job as a job in a predominately female populated industry? Now in our reading Britton stated “organizations are gendered at the level of structure” I really like this statement for a few different reasons. Personally I believe that women are a lot more apt to go out and fight for the equal right. While on the other hand a man usually does not take being denied a position at a place of employment very harsh as they usually just move on to the next job application or interview. However, why is that? Well, I think it mainly comes down to the fact that women have always fought for that top position or have the equality as a man in the same respect to the workforce so when they are denied or its not in their favor it usually becomes more personal than it does for a man.
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Blog Number 13
To begin, being a prison guard is nothing short of an extremely difficult job. I would say that this is one position that you definitely earn your pay in. With that, what makes people what to become prison guards? Well, that I am not too sure on. Either way, it’s something that people will do for a living. It has not been very long since we have seen a large population of women break into this career field. There have always been women that worked for the prisons, but it was something that they did as a secondary job for the police department. My grandmother was actually the very first women officer for the Yuma, AZ police department. She did not work out on the streets, she was strictly someone that would work in the office as a clerical employee, and then when females were arrested she was the one that would search and process them. Back then, the number of women that were arrested was few and far between so she told us how she was always on call.
When it comes to how females are portrayed as prison officers compared to their actual jobs would be completely different. It’s something that you cannot really understand unless you are involved with them on a daily basis. Being in the jails is an extremely difficult job. Something that not many people realize is that usually men officers are in men cells, and female officers are in female cells. Now the ratio of women officers to female officers is somewhat lopsided, with that there are many times that women prisoners have male guards. Why do they do this? Well a lot of it has to do with the amount of problems that occur in the cells. Now don’t get me wrong women are more than capable of controlling a situation just as much as men are. Really what it comes down to is the amount of training that they receive. Now naturally men are stronger than women so putting all women in a men’s cell could lead to them thinking that they can overpower the women. So having both men and women or only men in that sort of cell is something that is probably best for both. In the long run, more problems usually occur in male cell blocks then they do in women’s as well. So in turn, officers are usually trained accordingly.
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When it comes to how females are portrayed as prison officers compared to their actual jobs would be completely different. It’s something that you cannot really understand unless you are involved with them on a daily basis. Being in the jails is an extremely difficult job. Something that not many people realize is that usually men officers are in men cells, and female officers are in female cells. Now the ratio of women officers to female officers is somewhat lopsided, with that there are many times that women prisoners have male guards. Why do they do this? Well a lot of it has to do with the amount of problems that occur in the cells. Now don’t get me wrong women are more than capable of controlling a situation just as much as men are. Really what it comes down to is the amount of training that they receive. Now naturally men are stronger than women so putting all women in a men’s cell could lead to them thinking that they can overpower the women. So having both men and women or only men in that sort of cell is something that is probably best for both. In the long run, more problems usually occur in male cell blocks then they do in women’s as well. So in turn, officers are usually trained accordingly.
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Blog Number 12
Occupational segregation is something that we will always have in our society. We definitely have come a long way in regards to squashing the problem; however, we still have a lot of accomplish to have a seamless occupational equality of men to women. With all of the laws that we have, why does this sort of thing occur? Well, there are many ways in my opinion to take this question? You could approach it that many women just do not have interest is a certain kind of job. This goes the same way for men. Think about it, how many men do you know that want to be a makeup artist or hair dresser for a profession? So I think some it has to do with that, however, getting the inkling that was not the approach to take for the class I am going to entertain another. I think from time to time you have women that feel intimidated by certain positions. When it comes down to it, men have stronger personalities, yet that should not stop any women from getting a certain job that they want. If it’s something you want then go after it right? When it comes down to it, we have the laws out there to try and prevent this sort of thing, but in the end if someone really wanted to segregate employment to a certain gender they usually kind find some sort of loophole for a short period of time.
Now when a female is able to break into a male dominated career there are many different things that occur. Usually the women are taken under the wing of some males as someone they want to help, harvest and nurture. However, there are still those good ol’ boys that want nothing to do with them as in a way it’s an insult for them to come and try to work their career. One career that you see both sides from in my opinion would be law enforcement. Usually, when you have police officers that are women the older officers have a hard time with it, while the younger officers it’s nothing different. A few classes ago I actually completed an interview with a four women police officers in regards to their career, they all wanted to become police officers for the fact of helping people, and being thrill seekers. When it came down to it, they said no matter the circumstance they could always depend on having backup wither it be a younger or older officer. However, in the station they from time to time could feel the animosity from older officers.
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Now when a female is able to break into a male dominated career there are many different things that occur. Usually the women are taken under the wing of some males as someone they want to help, harvest and nurture. However, there are still those good ol’ boys that want nothing to do with them as in a way it’s an insult for them to come and try to work their career. One career that you see both sides from in my opinion would be law enforcement. Usually, when you have police officers that are women the older officers have a hard time with it, while the younger officers it’s nothing different. A few classes ago I actually completed an interview with a four women police officers in regards to their career, they all wanted to become police officers for the fact of helping people, and being thrill seekers. When it came down to it, they said no matter the circumstance they could always depend on having backup wither it be a younger or older officer. However, in the station they from time to time could feel the animosity from older officers.
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Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Blog #11 - Working Poor Women’s Unpaid Labor
I found an article in the Washington Post, titled “Unwanted Pregnancies Rise for Poor Women” it spoke about how women are not wanting their children and choosing to end their pregnancy a lot more these days. There was a very interesting statement in the article. “Poor women in America are increasingly likely to have unwanted pregnancies, whereas relatively affluent women are succeeding more and more in getting pregnant only when they want to, according to a study analyzing federal statistics.” Stated author Marc Kaufman. This has always been an issue on what to do when you get to this point in life, and get thrown a curveball like this. Now at this point in the stage do you consider this a good thing or a bad thing? Personally I have a hard time with this. I in no way shape or form believe in abortion unless it’s going to kill the mother or the pregnancy is the cause of a rape. Otherwise, I think it’s something that should not be allowed. People need to have more responsibility for their actions. Now on the other hand, I have a hard time with individuals who cannot support their children. I know I sound very harsh and cynical.
On the other hand though I understand things happen, they just do. In my opinion those programs are there for unfortunate circumstances. Not to be the primary means of feeding children since the parents don’t want to work. In the first video on this section, there was a family profiled. The Hamilton’s are a family that I think make a great example of what these programs are for. The father OB currently does not care what jobs he can get. Right now, it’s all about finding work. After being laid off from a very good truck driving job and his wife being laid off too, it created an unfortunate circumstance that they needed help with. These programs do just that. They are looking forward to the day they can come off the programs and support their home again.
While on the other hand the second video that profiled Miriam Schamp all she could say was I pray that god will take care of me. I know he will. Those are the individuals that want someone else to take care of them. They have no self drive to get out there and better themselves. Sad, but unfortunately true.
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Kaufman, M. (2006, May 6). Unwanted Pregnancies Rise for Poor Women. The Washington Post, Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/04/AR2006050400820.html
On the other hand though I understand things happen, they just do. In my opinion those programs are there for unfortunate circumstances. Not to be the primary means of feeding children since the parents don’t want to work. In the first video on this section, there was a family profiled. The Hamilton’s are a family that I think make a great example of what these programs are for. The father OB currently does not care what jobs he can get. Right now, it’s all about finding work. After being laid off from a very good truck driving job and his wife being laid off too, it created an unfortunate circumstance that they needed help with. These programs do just that. They are looking forward to the day they can come off the programs and support their home again.
While on the other hand the second video that profiled Miriam Schamp all she could say was I pray that god will take care of me. I know he will. Those are the individuals that want someone else to take care of them. They have no self drive to get out there and better themselves. Sad, but unfortunately true.
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Kaufman, M. (2006, May 6). Unwanted Pregnancies Rise for Poor Women. The Washington Post, Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/04/AR2006050400820.html
Blog #10 - Working Poor Women’s Unpaid Labor
After the welfare reform Chaundry tried to paint a picture of what women were still going through when it came to working and balancing childcare all at once. Of the women interviewed it painted a pretty clear picture of what I assume is occurring in the masses of single working mothers who also support their children. Usually when you get into your adulthood you want to have a great career, stable family, and to be able to provide for them as well. However, what happens when you have established that career but now need to work around childcare? Do you put your career first or childcare for your children? Cassandra, an individual profiled in the reading talked about how she at first she would adjust her childcare around her work schedule. However, as things started happening at the childcare she had to reevaluate her situation. She in turn, had to adjust her schedule around the timings that she could get her children taken care of. SO in turn, she started working the 4pm-midnight shift. This allowed for her to be home when her children would get home. The neighborhood babysitter would stay until the youngest went to sleep, then she was ok with the oldest being the only one home until she got home.
Another interesting case study was the interview with Jasmine. She was someone that had a career, and placed her small child into a care program while she went to work. However, one day when she went to pick up her child she saw her child on the floor with a wet diaper and the other kids running all around. At that time, Jasmine knew right away that this was not what she wanted for her child. She quit her job, and stayed home to watch her child. Now for the purpose of this article we won’t focus too much on this scenario as we are trying to focus on struggling working women. With her quitting so quickly, I would imagine that she had another source of income coming into her home. I wanted to show the point that she just up and quit her job; again, putting her career to the side for the care of her child, in my opinion that is very admirable.
Now having the ability and the dedication to work and have your children go to childcare is a decision that takes quite a bit of work to deal with. However, what happens when you need to work and the only option that you have is to send your child to a care center? What happens when you can’t afford childcare? It turns more into what you can afford, and not about what kind of care you want your child to receive. Obviously, placing your child into a care facility that is structured and well balanced between social interaction and learning activities is something that is very pleasant for both you as a parent, and usually the consistent structure that your child receives is usually nothing less than remarkable. Now when you can’t afford this sort of thing, you look to other options. The next most common thing being in home daycare, now this is usually just someone that stays home and watches children. In the long run its not a bad thing if its ran correctly. However, when worse comes to worse, and the children come from a home that is considered in the poverty level what do you do? Well, currently there are 13,000,000 children that are part of this group. Usually we see subsidies come from the state to help these parents. Unfortunately these sorts of programs are running very thin and the resources that are sunk into them are becoming sucked dry. Sad thing though these programs are usually not all that great either.
In the end, there are many different forms of childcare out there. In the perfect world, we would all love to place our children in a childcare facility that has a structured learning curriculum, a safe place for them to be, and the ability for social interaction. It’s a proven fact that when this sort of thing is provided to you children their development skills develop at a faster pace than a child that has not been in this environment. Unfortunately this is not always the case. Luckily the government will help provide some different sorts of financial assistance that helps offset the cost, sad part is that its sometimes not always enough.
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Another interesting case study was the interview with Jasmine. She was someone that had a career, and placed her small child into a care program while she went to work. However, one day when she went to pick up her child she saw her child on the floor with a wet diaper and the other kids running all around. At that time, Jasmine knew right away that this was not what she wanted for her child. She quit her job, and stayed home to watch her child. Now for the purpose of this article we won’t focus too much on this scenario as we are trying to focus on struggling working women. With her quitting so quickly, I would imagine that she had another source of income coming into her home. I wanted to show the point that she just up and quit her job; again, putting her career to the side for the care of her child, in my opinion that is very admirable.
Now having the ability and the dedication to work and have your children go to childcare is a decision that takes quite a bit of work to deal with. However, what happens when you need to work and the only option that you have is to send your child to a care center? What happens when you can’t afford childcare? It turns more into what you can afford, and not about what kind of care you want your child to receive. Obviously, placing your child into a care facility that is structured and well balanced between social interaction and learning activities is something that is very pleasant for both you as a parent, and usually the consistent structure that your child receives is usually nothing less than remarkable. Now when you can’t afford this sort of thing, you look to other options. The next most common thing being in home daycare, now this is usually just someone that stays home and watches children. In the long run its not a bad thing if its ran correctly. However, when worse comes to worse, and the children come from a home that is considered in the poverty level what do you do? Well, currently there are 13,000,000 children that are part of this group. Usually we see subsidies come from the state to help these parents. Unfortunately these sorts of programs are running very thin and the resources that are sunk into them are becoming sucked dry. Sad thing though these programs are usually not all that great either.
In the end, there are many different forms of childcare out there. In the perfect world, we would all love to place our children in a childcare facility that has a structured learning curriculum, a safe place for them to be, and the ability for social interaction. It’s a proven fact that when this sort of thing is provided to you children their development skills develop at a faster pace than a child that has not been in this environment. Unfortunately this is not always the case. Luckily the government will help provide some different sorts of financial assistance that helps offset the cost, sad part is that its sometimes not always enough.
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Blog #9 - Working Poor Women’s Unpaid Labor
Living in poverty is never anything that we want anyone to go through. It’s something that is just nothing short of sad. Then when you throw a child into the mix it becomes even worse. As sad as it sounds there unfortunately is a correlation it seems between single family homes and children living in poverty. From watching the videos, there are many working mothers out there trying to make ends meet and yet still provide for their children. However, what do you do when the work is just not there? You have to revert to the public programs. According to the data from the NCCCP “National Center for Children in Poverty” there are close 13,000,000 children living in poverty, this in turn equates to 18% of our nations children who live with families in the United States. That is an extremely sad number. Now with a problem of this magnitude what do we do as a nation? Well there are a few different options that are currently out there. There are many different government programs that help feed children. One of the biggest ones is the school programs that will feed the children for a reduced cost all the way to a free meal. Now when school is out what do you do? There are many different shelters that will provide a meal to children that are on summer vacation. Overall, the meals are usually small and not always there for every child. I think with this data that is shown, we need to look at this problem from a broader level. Why are these children living like this? One of the biggest problems is that their parents can’t get a job or any monetary compensation. Why can’t they get a job? Could it be that possibly we as a country are allowing for a lot of work to be relocated overseas? Let’s put stricter regulations on this sort of thing for large business, tax the hell out of them to help subsidize this sort of thing, which in turn may influence them to bring the work back to our own land. What do you think? What options would you think could help fix this problem?
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Blog #8 - Working Poor Women’s Paid Labor
Urban poverty is something that seems to possibly never escape us. Currently you have many different situations across the country that involves the different families and the reason that they are part of our nation’s poverty level. Currently, in today’s recession I think it’s even more prevalent than ever. Mothers are having a hard time getting into the work force and the different issues that they are facing are very serious. What do you do when you are a mother with children, and can’t get a job to help provide for them? It’s something that many males do not necessarily think about however, it’s something that we need to. As I have said many times coming from a single family home raised by only a mother I can speak to many of these issues because a lot of them I grew up first hand experiencing. However, even though my mom was able to keep a consistent job, and work 2nd odd and end type jobs there was always one thing in common she always did whatever was necessary to make sure that we had what was needed. In the video on urban poverty this seems to be a little bit different. It was more about how women would work and still not able to make the ends to support their home meet. I thought it was very interesting how some people in the video would either live in their own guilt or they would go about finding ways to make best of the situation at hand. I think a great example of this would be in the video it shows how a family could not make the ends of living on their in turn they ended up moving in with the grandparents. This allowed for them to save a little money, however, was not enough of relief for them to save up money to get back out on their own. It also was very prevalent that the grandmother needed the financial assistance as well. Overall urban poverty is a problem that we still see quite a bit. With the rise of living cost, and financial wages staying the same something has got to change here. What do you think?
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Blog #7 - Working Poor Women’s Paid Labor
One of the best things that can be provided to a child is the consistent routines to helping the child develop and grow. With this when you are able to keep the child’s mind continually stimulated it will payoff for them. This is one of the best things for a child when they are in a day care environment. Usually when you use a very large or very organized child care this is one of the main things that are provided in their program. However, if you can’t afford this type of service you probably will not have very much luck finding this sort of service of poverty wages.
With minimum wage jobs you have a hard time finding this sort of service to provide it to your child. Like everything else in our country this sort of thing costs money. When you are looking for a service of this magnitude it can become very pricy when you are already having a hard time making ends meet. With that what usually occurs? Well, you usually find people reverting to the less organized daycare. This is the sort of daycare that when you drop your child off you are not sure really what they are going to do. One day they may play outside all day. While the following day they may be put in front of the television to be kept occupied as usually these sort of daycares are ran out of someone’s home that is a stay at home parent looking to make a little income.
In the videos a few of the parents reference working from home, while some parents may adjust their schedules so that one works early and the other works late so they can afford childcare. While other parents are more concerned about having that consistency; one of the parents in the third section spoke about how the grandmother is always home for the child. As unfortunate as that sounds, it’s a little bit better because they are consistently dealing with the same parent.
For this section I hate to be the pester of the group but it’s very prevalent of the trend of these people that want someone to just come in and say I’m sorry here let me help you since you are not doing very good. If the people of our country took more of an initiative we may not have such a problem with poverty level families and them dealing with such a problem with money and childcare.
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With minimum wage jobs you have a hard time finding this sort of service to provide it to your child. Like everything else in our country this sort of thing costs money. When you are looking for a service of this magnitude it can become very pricy when you are already having a hard time making ends meet. With that what usually occurs? Well, you usually find people reverting to the less organized daycare. This is the sort of daycare that when you drop your child off you are not sure really what they are going to do. One day they may play outside all day. While the following day they may be put in front of the television to be kept occupied as usually these sort of daycares are ran out of someone’s home that is a stay at home parent looking to make a little income.
In the videos a few of the parents reference working from home, while some parents may adjust their schedules so that one works early and the other works late so they can afford childcare. While other parents are more concerned about having that consistency; one of the parents in the third section spoke about how the grandmother is always home for the child. As unfortunate as that sounds, it’s a little bit better because they are consistently dealing with the same parent.
For this section I hate to be the pester of the group but it’s very prevalent of the trend of these people that want someone to just come in and say I’m sorry here let me help you since you are not doing very good. If the people of our country took more of an initiative we may not have such a problem with poverty level families and them dealing with such a problem with money and childcare.
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Blog #6 - Cost of Child Care
We all know that the sooner we have our children learning about life the better their development will be in the long run right? So then what do we do when we can’t provide that to our children? A lot of people look to child care to fill this gap. With the rising cost of child care and wages staying the same what is a struggling family to do? Well first off, why is child care going up? Is it that we are being lazier as Americans and raising the wages? Salaries are pretty much staying the same, so is this a career that people are choosing so that they can be home with families?
Those of us who need to use childcare but can’t afford the normal places that are out there are struggling big time. They are looking for different means of getting their children into places at an affordable rate. When you should be able to focus on how much your child is going to learn you have more people looking at the cost of that childcare. So it now becomes a matter of what do I owe you a week, instead of how much knowledge and learning actives do you plan on providing my child.
With this being the case in there was again a common trend that I saw in the videos. The individuals that were being interviewed had some sort of sob story. The second video where the lady missed the open window of time to report a status change lost her child care certificate. In the interview she says “I understand that there are time limits, but they should understand things happen.” I have a hard time dealing with people like that. I am more than confident to say that there was probably a large window of time for her to report this. People just think they don’t have to abide by rules like that. Unfortunately they do. Trust me I understand things happen, however, I am not a fan of how much money is thrown to child care. I understand that it allows for people to get out and work, but let’s first make sure we can afford children before having them. In a perfect world this would probably not even be an issue.
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Those of us who need to use childcare but can’t afford the normal places that are out there are struggling big time. They are looking for different means of getting their children into places at an affordable rate. When you should be able to focus on how much your child is going to learn you have more people looking at the cost of that childcare. So it now becomes a matter of what do I owe you a week, instead of how much knowledge and learning actives do you plan on providing my child.
With this being the case in there was again a common trend that I saw in the videos. The individuals that were being interviewed had some sort of sob story. The second video where the lady missed the open window of time to report a status change lost her child care certificate. In the interview she says “I understand that there are time limits, but they should understand things happen.” I have a hard time dealing with people like that. I am more than confident to say that there was probably a large window of time for her to report this. People just think they don’t have to abide by rules like that. Unfortunately they do. Trust me I understand things happen, however, I am not a fan of how much money is thrown to child care. I understand that it allows for people to get out and work, but let’s first make sure we can afford children before having them. In a perfect world this would probably not even be an issue.
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Blog #5 - Identifying the Working Poor
This is going to be a very tough blog for me to try and not let me personal opinion come out on. I however, on the other hand have a lot to say about this particular subject. As I have said in many other blogs I come from a single family home. I know the meaning, alongside the exact feeling of what it’s like to live with a ‘hole in your pocket.’ My mother always worked very hard, yet always felt like she had barriers in her way of becoming outside the poverty line. Now the difference is that she had too much pride to go and get help from the government so we never had that sort of added income into our favor. Now to the videos and chapter, people that live below the poverty line and have issues with trying to make ends meet had one thing in common to me it felt like they are waiting for the other person to come and rescue them. In the video “Living with a Hole in your Pocket” It really bothered me how the lady that was a waitress stated that during the month of January she is always slow, however, all she does it pray that something will come her way to help make ends meet. My question/problem with people like that wouldn’t if you know you are going to be slow around that time of the year and only work 25 hours a week proactively seek to get a second job a month or two before that slow time? The videos definitely support Chaudry’s thought that if you’re not born with a golden spoon that you will have a difficult life. Now on the other hand I also feel that if you have a strong enough drive you can definitely beat that statistic and make something for yourself. I personally feel that I am a living proof. Now some people live in this sort of condition because it’s all they know and they are comfortable with that life style. Even if you or your family come from that sort of life does not mean you have to stay living in that condition. I know that I am one who strives to not live in that sort of thing. To those that choose too, more power to you. That’s one great thing about our country you can choose how to live right? My only thing is if you are going to choose to live a life like that please do not complain about being broke. Now those that have unfortunate circumstances occur to them putting them into that life its complete different.
Another interesting of this section was about people entering back into our community from incarceration. Being justice studies major and wanting to enter into law enforcement I have a very opinionated answer. I think the way things are now are just fine. I sure do not want someone who committed a major crime working in a job that has quite a bit of importance. For example, at my bank we will not hire anyone with a history. I think that is just fine. Why? Well, would you want an ex-criminal handling your money, knowing where you lived, or your personal net worth? I know they paid their times but temptation can get the best of you.
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Another interesting of this section was about people entering back into our community from incarceration. Being justice studies major and wanting to enter into law enforcement I have a very opinionated answer. I think the way things are now are just fine. I sure do not want someone who committed a major crime working in a job that has quite a bit of importance. For example, at my bank we will not hire anyone with a history. I think that is just fine. Why? Well, would you want an ex-criminal handling your money, knowing where you lived, or your personal net worth? I know they paid their times but temptation can get the best of you.
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Thursday, September 10, 2009
Balancing Work & Family (Blog #4)
When it comes to thinking about your family life, every single one of us are going to define what we think the good characteristics around going to be. Obviously there are going to be the generic ones that no matter what your thoughts, background, faith, or morals are going to agree with. Those characteristics I would say are having a roof over your head, food on the table, your family together, as well as happy and healthy. If you have those few components usually nothing can defeat the family bond. However, that is not always the case. As your values and morals change from one another we may give or take in one area to what we personally feel our definition of a good life is. For example, I am not a very spiritual person. With that said, I am not a huge fan of getting up on Sunday and going to church. So for example, if I had the opportunity to skip church with the family to make some money, you can bet that I am probably going to do that. But why so people will ask. Well I personally feel that I can call to the higher power when needed, but when I have the opportunity to make an extra buck you sometimes can’t pass it up.
As you can tell, making money is an important thing to me. I’m definitely not the only one. With that comes a career, however, you can’t have your career run your life, sometimes people do. To balance your career and family life will take a lot of work. If you’re someone that works until the job is done that can be bad for your health. Why? Well carrying the constant stress of your job is never good for anyone. Plus you need to make sure you leave the career at work when you come home. When you get home you have to make sure you focus on your family life. This personally is something that I have a hard time doing. I have a laptop for work, and there are many nights that I am back on it doing work once I’m done with school work. Yet, I think I balance it well, the only bad thing is that my home is no longer my safe haven completely away from work.
Trying to balance the two can become difficult, especially when you have undetermined factors that unexpectedly come up. What do I mean by that? Well when you have a family and your child becomes sick. Now you have to determine how you are going to take care of your child while still making a living doing your job. How about when you have more work then what can actually be done in a single work week? How do you make that decision on what is going to get done and what is not? Lastly, what about when you get sick? Unexpected things come up all the time. They are just something we have to handle as they are handed down to us.
With all the changes in current gender roles it has become more and more difficult to deal and cope with unexpected issues as the pop up. For example back in the 1960’s more than 70% of homes had a single breadwinner of the family while the wife stayed home. This made things a lot easier. Reason being was that men would be able to focus on work, while the women would deal with all of the family items. If your child became sick, the women would be able to tend and care to him. Now that both sides of the family are working making this compromise on who is going to tend to the unexpected items that come up in life has become more difficult over time.
Since more and more households are dealing with both parents working this has caused employers to adjust the way they work with their employees. Now days we are seeing more and more employers allowing their employees work flex schedules, more time being given for vacations, sick time, and personal. Lastly one of the fastest growing trends is we are seeing more and more employees working from home. This in a way really is a win for both the employer and employee. The employer is still getting the completed work from the compensated employee. However, the employee is being allowed to reconnect with the family life. When a child is sick it’s not so hard to go and pick them up, etc. Now when you have the support of other family members, friends and neighbors you can help with sharing the responsibility. For example if your neighbor works only two days a week they may be able to assist with picking up a sick child. Allowing for more than one set of parents share the work and having multiple families share the work between a few sets of parents it’s a win situation for everyone. You all know each other, trust each other, and usually are not very far so you do not feel as bad as you would when you leave them with someone you do not know very well.
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As you can tell, making money is an important thing to me. I’m definitely not the only one. With that comes a career, however, you can’t have your career run your life, sometimes people do. To balance your career and family life will take a lot of work. If you’re someone that works until the job is done that can be bad for your health. Why? Well carrying the constant stress of your job is never good for anyone. Plus you need to make sure you leave the career at work when you come home. When you get home you have to make sure you focus on your family life. This personally is something that I have a hard time doing. I have a laptop for work, and there are many nights that I am back on it doing work once I’m done with school work. Yet, I think I balance it well, the only bad thing is that my home is no longer my safe haven completely away from work.
Trying to balance the two can become difficult, especially when you have undetermined factors that unexpectedly come up. What do I mean by that? Well when you have a family and your child becomes sick. Now you have to determine how you are going to take care of your child while still making a living doing your job. How about when you have more work then what can actually be done in a single work week? How do you make that decision on what is going to get done and what is not? Lastly, what about when you get sick? Unexpected things come up all the time. They are just something we have to handle as they are handed down to us.
With all the changes in current gender roles it has become more and more difficult to deal and cope with unexpected issues as the pop up. For example back in the 1960’s more than 70% of homes had a single breadwinner of the family while the wife stayed home. This made things a lot easier. Reason being was that men would be able to focus on work, while the women would deal with all of the family items. If your child became sick, the women would be able to tend and care to him. Now that both sides of the family are working making this compromise on who is going to tend to the unexpected items that come up in life has become more difficult over time.
Since more and more households are dealing with both parents working this has caused employers to adjust the way they work with their employees. Now days we are seeing more and more employers allowing their employees work flex schedules, more time being given for vacations, sick time, and personal. Lastly one of the fastest growing trends is we are seeing more and more employees working from home. This in a way really is a win for both the employer and employee. The employer is still getting the completed work from the compensated employee. However, the employee is being allowed to reconnect with the family life. When a child is sick it’s not so hard to go and pick them up, etc. Now when you have the support of other family members, friends and neighbors you can help with sharing the responsibility. For example if your neighbor works only two days a week they may be able to assist with picking up a sick child. Allowing for more than one set of parents share the work and having multiple families share the work between a few sets of parents it’s a win situation for everyone. You all know each other, trust each other, and usually are not very far so you do not feel as bad as you would when you leave them with someone you do not know very well.
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Home & Work /Public & Private (Blog #3)
Care work is something that I have very familiar with in my family. Coming from an Italian family it’s something that we when you have a family member that has become ill, or is aging and can no longer care of themselves alone. In November of 1999 my grandmother became terminally ill with Lou Gehrig’s disease. This is a very uncommon disease that strikes people after they have burned out their motor neurons. It’s very fast moving and something that will take over the functioning of your body and limbs; However, something that does not affect their mind and brain. As I grew older and entered into the workforce it became more and more difficult to deal and assist my grandmother. Yet, she means the world to me. I really had to determine what type of care I could offer her, yet still be able to manage my work and school schedule as I was going to have to deal with all three of these items. For close to six years, I was able to help take her to appointments, dr visits, and all other sorts of recreational actives due to the flexibility I had at work. This was very nice to have this luxury as I enjoyed spending time with her, however, needed to make money to live and survive so I really did not have to choose to many times when I needed to be in two places around the same time.
The efforts made in the UK are very nice to see. I would say slowly but surely the United States is starting to adapt that model. What I mean by that is we are currently seeing more and more companies enter into the flex work program, work from home, and other options allowing for their employees to work more around a busy life schedule while still fulfilling their job duties. Because of this program, it is allowing many more women to enter into the working field; however, it’s still allowing them to manage their home lives. As the video refers to many women are working on average 12-15 more hours a week then men when you include their home duties. The reason behind this some researches refer as it being that men do not want to give up their machoism. While on the flip side a lot of women do not want to turn over the duties of ‘their’ home either.
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The efforts made in the UK are very nice to see. I would say slowly but surely the United States is starting to adapt that model. What I mean by that is we are currently seeing more and more companies enter into the flex work program, work from home, and other options allowing for their employees to work more around a busy life schedule while still fulfilling their job duties. Because of this program, it is allowing many more women to enter into the working field; however, it’s still allowing them to manage their home lives. As the video refers to many women are working on average 12-15 more hours a week then men when you include their home duties. The reason behind this some researches refer as it being that men do not want to give up their machoism. While on the flip side a lot of women do not want to turn over the duties of ‘their’ home either.
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Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Major Concepts & Theories on Gender Inequality(Blog #2)
Sex segregation is something that as much as we do not want to admit is still definitely prevalent in today’s society. What sex segregation is referring to is the separation of jobs and gender roles. What this means is that you will see jobs that are more respected and applicable being worked by males, while the lower end jobs or ‘easier’ jobs are being worked more by women. Does this still apply, absolutely! As much as we wish it did not, it definitely does. For example just take a look at ASU. One great example that comes to mind is the cleaning and grounds keeping crews. Usually at ASU we see more women doing the cleaning, while we see more men doing the grounds keeping (cleaning the laws, trimming the grass and trees, etc.) Why is that though, what says a women is not allowed or does not have the capabilities of using a lawn mower?
While growing up it was a little different in my home. Coming from a home that was raised my a single mother and not having a father figure around I don’t think that I was raised as most boys were my age. Now don’t get me wrong I still played sports, went outside and got in trouble, and did all the typical things that growing up boys would do. However, since it was just me and my mom I think she was more prone to showing me how to up keep a house, cook, clean, do my laundry, etc. Because of this, I don’t think I have less male tendencies. In fact I think it just makes me more rounded of an individual. However, I did not have that father figure around all the time to discipline and show the segregation of male roles to female roles that we so commonly refer to these days.
Lastly, when it comes to women working jobs in the current recession due to more men being laid off then women we are still seeing heavy sex segregation. Currently on average women are making .77 cents to every dollar that men make. However, what’s one of the reasons that this is occurring well a lot of jobs women are taking are not unionized jobs. Because of this, women at times just become more thankful for a job then they are concerned with the pay.
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While growing up it was a little different in my home. Coming from a home that was raised my a single mother and not having a father figure around I don’t think that I was raised as most boys were my age. Now don’t get me wrong I still played sports, went outside and got in trouble, and did all the typical things that growing up boys would do. However, since it was just me and my mom I think she was more prone to showing me how to up keep a house, cook, clean, do my laundry, etc. Because of this, I don’t think I have less male tendencies. In fact I think it just makes me more rounded of an individual. However, I did not have that father figure around all the time to discipline and show the segregation of male roles to female roles that we so commonly refer to these days.
Lastly, when it comes to women working jobs in the current recession due to more men being laid off then women we are still seeing heavy sex segregation. Currently on average women are making .77 cents to every dollar that men make. However, what’s one of the reasons that this is occurring well a lot of jobs women are taking are not unionized jobs. Because of this, women at times just become more thankful for a job then they are concerned with the pay.
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Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Introduction
Good evening Justice 420 world! My name is Brandon Pollard, I am 23 and live out in Gilbert. Currently I am in my third year at ASU as a senior and will be graduating in May. I am definitely extremely excited to graduate and move on to the next phase in life. In that next phase I hope to use my degree of Justice Studies as a means to advance my career in corporate security with my company or one of its close competitors. Gotta go where the work is right? The reason I am taking this class mainly is to fulfill one of my 400 level requirements that are needed for my degree. However, I hope to get very valuable information out of it. As society becomes more about equal rights I can agree that women should be treated the same when it come to work. Hopefully I will gain valuable knowledge that will help me not only in life but as well as my career.
To me women, work, and justice are all very close members of one family. For the longest time it was that women stayed home with the children, house, and family duties. While the man on the other hand was the one that went out made the money and was the superior of the house. In today’s society I think that have very much changed. It’s something in my opinion that we are very far out from being of equal status all across the country, however, I believe more and more are coming to equal terms. Personally as a young white male I hope to be able to provide for my family. Yet, on the other hand I would love for my wife to have a name and reputation of her own. I think that in today's world women my age are reverting back to that old school way of wishing that they could just be stay at home wife/mom and not have to work. Even after years of what other women have fought so hard for. I guess it goes with the saying that things tend to skip a generation right?
In the justice field I really have a strong interest of just doing the right thing. I am a strong believer of our constitution and the rights provided to each American. With that, I have a strong interest in the authoritative role and the study of those who use that role to their advantage. The biggest and probably the most prevalent one would be police officers who abuse their powers. By the time I retire I hope to have worked in a commanding position in a police department and the help wean that problem out. One of the most talked about problems within this field are male officers that take advantage along with inappropriate conduct with women. To me it’s just not right and should not be tolerated. However, some women will allow for it to occur if it gets them out of a ticket.
To me women, work, and justice are all very close members of one family. For the longest time it was that women stayed home with the children, house, and family duties. While the man on the other hand was the one that went out made the money and was the superior of the house. In today’s society I think that have very much changed. It’s something in my opinion that we are very far out from being of equal status all across the country, however, I believe more and more are coming to equal terms. Personally as a young white male I hope to be able to provide for my family. Yet, on the other hand I would love for my wife to have a name and reputation of her own. I think that in today's world women my age are reverting back to that old school way of wishing that they could just be stay at home wife/mom and not have to work. Even after years of what other women have fought so hard for. I guess it goes with the saying that things tend to skip a generation right?
In the justice field I really have a strong interest of just doing the right thing. I am a strong believer of our constitution and the rights provided to each American. With that, I have a strong interest in the authoritative role and the study of those who use that role to their advantage. The biggest and probably the most prevalent one would be police officers who abuse their powers. By the time I retire I hope to have worked in a commanding position in a police department and the help wean that problem out. One of the most talked about problems within this field are male officers that take advantage along with inappropriate conduct with women. To me it’s just not right and should not be tolerated. However, some women will allow for it to occur if it gets them out of a ticket.
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