Oedipal Complex in the Tragedy of Hamlet Essay Example for Free

Oedipal Complex in the Tragedy of Hamlet Essay How might the Oedipal complex factor into the tragedy of Hamlet? Oedipal complex Freud’s theory of stages of development for boys To describe a boy’s feelings of desire for his mother and jealously and anger towards his father Also thought boys felt they were in a completion with their father for possession of his mother His father is looked at as a rival They boy is observing his father in hopes of being like him or even better Those that carry on these feelings into adulthood are considered to have an Oedipus Complex During the Gibson movie Hamlet hates his uncle/step father; Claudius which Freud says is alright. Claudius is now the new king of Denmark We guess Hamlet would have taken the throne eventually if Queen Gertrude had not remarried. It seems like Claudius and Hamlet have built a rivalry and are in a competition for Gertrude. Because Hamlet feels like Claudius has taken his place next to Gertrude. One of the most controversial scenes in the Gibson movie is when Hamlet goes into Gertrude’s bedroom and confronts her about Claudius. He tells her not to have sex with Claudius (jealousy) He’s obsessed with the thought of his mother in bed During this confrontation there is a lot of sexual tension between the two The movie shows them passionately kissing What other comparisons can we draw between Hamlet and Oedipus? Similarities Differences Oedipus earned the trust of his people Oedipus acts on his actions How could one make the argument that the mother figure is the root of all problems in the play? What is the role of King Hamlet’s ghost in the play? How do you know that it is not a figment of Hamlet’s imagination? Why can’t Gertrude see it? Does Hamlet love Ophelia? How does one obtain power in Hamlet? Explain the importance or lack of importance of thinking and action. How do the Id, Ego, and Superego emerge in the play? At what point in the movie do you believe Hamlet crossed â€Å"a line of madness†? Does he come back? When? How is Hamlet being portrayed in the Gibson movie, the other movie, and the play? What other dramatic differences can you identity among the play’s text, the Gibson version, and the third version that you viewed? The biggest difference between the play and the Gibson version is that Fortinbus isn’t mentioned.

How Power Is Maintained Within The Society Media Essay

How Power Is Maintained Within The Society Media Essay According to Lukes (1986) cited in Scott (2001), power is, in its most general sense, the production of casual effects. When it comes to the social power, probably the best known definition of all was introduced by a German sociologist Max Weber (1920). He distinguished three kinds of power- traditional authority, legal authority and charismatic authority. Traditional authority occurred mainly in early Middle Ages and in some of todays tribal societies. It is the most stable form of power, not very susceptible to manipulation, because it is based mainly on tradition, which could be extremely difficult to change and the effects of such changes could be difficult to predict. Charismatic authority based on a personal ability to subordinate people, their dedication and trust in relation to the leader. No one else is able to perform such kind of power except of the person endowed with charisma. Legal authority is the least stable and its impermanence is apparent from the ease of manipula tion of the legal standards that form the basis of legitimacy. The authority is a feature of the relationship, not an attribute of personality. It is the impact on the partners in a mutual relationship. The aim of this essay is to show the ways, in which power is maintained within the society, through the transmission of values and ideas. Media can contribute a lot to a society. It can change opinions because they have access to people and this gives it a lot of strength. This strength can either be used constructively by educating people or it can be used destructively by misleading the innocent people. According to van Dijk article (1995) media uses their power in a really elaborate way. Thanks to its persuasive power, mass media can influence and control the audiences minds. Consequently through such a mind control, the mass media can also indirectly affect the viewers or readers actions. Author argues also, that the mass media consciously leaves a bit of independence to its audiences, just to make them better absorbed and encourages them to be actively involved instead of stay passive. Such a deliberate action of the media on the recipient, van Dijk described as a media manipulation. Author further explains, that the manipulation is the most effective when the recipients do not realize, they are being a subject of the media manipulation. Furthermore, according to that, manipulation is often perceived in a negative terms and is also being seen as a kind of the power abuse in the media. It is because of people, who create an image or certain argument just to support own interests. In effect, recipients accepts the news reports as a true and journalists opinions as a trustworthy.(van Dijk, 1995). There are many ways in which media manipulate their audiences inter alia suppression by omission, labeling, face-value transmission, slighting of content, false balancing, or framing. The basic way to make people stop to listen certain arguments, is to divert their attention elsewhere. The useful tool to do this is propaganda.(Herman, 2003;) In Manufacturing Consent Chomsky and Herman explains that the vast majority of the mass media companies are businesses, owned by wealthy people or big companies, and therefore media are mainly looking for profit, and they are selling airtime in TV or columns in newspapers to advertisers, who wants their ads to appear in a supporting environment just to secure access to the widest audience. Moreover, Herman and Chomsky introduced five factors actively involved in propaganda model. Those factors are: ownership, advertising, sourcing, flak and anticommunist ideology.(Herman, 2003) Those factors works like a filters, every information must pass through to get its final shape. Marxists also agrees, that ownership is an important factor. From Marxist point of view, if a newspapers are owned by the wealthy, it suggest that they will promote views of their owners. Another way in which the productivities of the mass media are affirmed, is through advertising. Companies pay large amounts of money just to have their products advertised in the newspaper or shown in television, and in effect the vast majority of newspapers or commercial television stations exists only because they earn money from advertising goods and services. Nowadays advertisements are everywhere and for some people it is nothing more than letting to know what is new or worth to buy. But for Marxists advertising performs more functions than only informing people what is worth buying. (Berger,1982; Chapter 2) In his book The State in the Capitalist Society R. Milliband analyzed the functions of the mass media, and he found that advertising could be seen also as a kind of political tool, because it reinforces the existing social order and highlights the rule of the capitalists. Milliband stated that advertising not only informs but mostly persuades. It not only tells to the potential buyer what to buy, but also suggests that capitalism is the best system. Consequently, the company not only sells goods, it also sells capitalism. Just to conclude propaganda model from the Marxist perspective, if a group own the production, they have not only economic, but also political power. The state is being seen as an institution which helps to organize the capitalist society, while the working class people are said to hold values, ideas and beliefs, but their ideas are still being manipulated by the media. Marx saw capitalism as a system of unequal wealth distribution within group of the powerful people, and believed, that the masses will further give up with capitalism to find the less oppressive system. (Best, 2002; 78-79) The Marxs theory of ideology was further continued by an Itali an Marxist Antonio Gramsci. Gramsci understood that each of the dominant political class dominates also the consciousness of others. Gramsci believed that the working class has not made a revolution because capitalism was on its cultural hegemony. Cultural hegemony in practice is limited to fixing the content has already been imposed. Such content may be, for example lifestyle, religion, school programs or career patterns. All this is presented to a subordinate class in a knowledge-sense way, and it effectively prevents the proletarians from formation of their own culture, their own patterns of life, or their own ideas. In Marxs materialist concept of history, the conditions of scarcity and poverty create antagonism between the classes. Antagonism, which leads to the hegemony of one class over another. Capitalism has not collapsed thanks to the cultural hegemony. The workers accepted the existing system of production as really reasonable and unassailable. Therefore that gave the ide ological victory for the bourgeoisie. To succeed the revolution, workers must have their own culture and ideology. Therefore the key challenge for them is to oppose to the bourgeois culture. (Gramsci, 1926-37) According to Turow, hypodermic needle theory implied that the mass media had a direct, immediate and powerful effect on their audiences. That model of media communication was introduced by S. Tchakhotine (1939) and was based on media war propaganda. Broadcasters using the targeted content continuously and systematically stimulate basic instincts of the recipients on a stimulus- response base. This model assumes passivity and irrationality of behavior and a high susceptibility to the content of propaganda. A reflection of this concept in the context of the relationship between media and the recipient is a shot called a magic bullet theory or hypodermic needle injection. The basis of this theory is the assertion of total passivity of the recipients and the lack of resistance to the transfer. It was assumed that the message reaches all units in the society, which each of them receives in the same way, and it leads them to a similar reaction. Every unit within the society becomes a subje ct to bite specified by the message and whether it will be effective depends only on the dose. (Croteau and Hoynes, 2003, 240; Turow, 2009, 153) French sociologist Jean Baudrillard in his book Simulacra and Simulation argues that we live in an age of simulacra in which reality has been absorbed by its own representation, in an age in which truth, reference or objective reason ceased to exist. According to the philosopher people no longer perceive reality, only a simulation. In the opinion of Baudrillard simulacra has become one of the most important category in our culture. Media lead to the invalidation of reality, and to stem the flow of information. Each event is ground, which according to the author of Simulacra and Simulation leads to loss of feeling and the whole sequence of events. Simulation runs directly to produce hyper-reality, which defines the reality even more real than the reality itself. Media offer us the beauty more beautiful than the beauty and truth truer than the truth. Baudrillard argues that there is no reality, which does not mean that we live in a world of fantasy, he says only that people can no long er reach the unmediated reality. Baudrillard says that the reality does not disappear, it vanished the difference between what is real and what is simulated. Our senses are no longer able to distinguish between images and simulacrum.(Baudrillard, 1994; 21-23) Baudrillard also famously claimed that the Gulf War in 1991, did not happen, although its appearance in television. It is obvious, that the war actually took place, but the meaning and the details of what happened are inseparable from television coverage.(Baudrillard, 1995; 17). A man immersed in the hyper-reality, assess their real survival according to whether they match with the image promoted by the movies he watch, he sees himself in the mirror through the prism of ideal images in advertising. A sense of reality blurs for him forever because of continuous invasion of images served by the media, what captures their understanding of the world. In conclusion, media therefore do not affect what people think, but affect it, about what people think and can focus our attention on some issues, turning it (via omissions, etc.) from the other cases. The views of the unit depends largely on its perceived bias, the opinion prevailing in the social environment, and these in turn from the views presented in the mass media. The views of the media are easier than others reinforced by public opinion. The truth of this assertion depends on the activities of dissident groups, having the courage and strength to expression of alternative.

Gates’ and Wilson’s Theories on African Diaspora Musics Essays -- Musi

Gates’ and Wilson’s Theories on African Diaspora Musics Some scholars theorize that the Middle Passage to the Americas was so traumatic that most African influence was eradicated, and that few traces of Africa exist in African-American music. This â€Å"cultural tabulala [sic] rasa† theory is rightfully rejected by many scholars (Wilson 3). The inflow of African people to the New World was brought on by the existence of slavery, and resulted in the creation of a sort of extension of the African continent in a different hemisphere. In his article â€Å"The Significance of the Relationship Between [sic] Afro-American Music and West African Music,† music scholar Olly Wilson refutes the tabula rasa theory, and provides extensive examples of the ties that continue to exist between the two distant geographical regions. Another prominent scholar who recognizes the integration of African elements in American musics is Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Though his much deeper and more analytical approach to African musics is divergent from Wils on’s, both scholars acknowledge African diaspora musics and examine them in different ways based on different criteria. Cuba is considered one of the places where African music has been most fully preserved. Within this island nation there exist many secular and religious genres of Afro-Cuban music. These genres are associated with the spread of palo monte and santeria—two of the many neo-African syncretic religions in the New World (Den Tandt and Young 251). The idea of syncretism—a mixing of the beliefs or practices of different groups—is very popular in many aspects of analysis of the New World’s Africanization. With respect to religion, the term refers especially to the combining of characteristics of native... ...racteristics of and approaches to African and African-American music. Gates advocates a deep examination of the music—a literary-style analysis exploring layers of meaning within music, intertextualities, and modes of expression. Works Cited Den Tandt, Catherine and Richard A. Young. â€Å"Tradition and transformation in Latin American music.† The Cambridge Companion to Modern Latin American Culture. Ed. John King. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. â€Å"The Signifying Monkey. A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism.† New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. Rodriguez, Omar. â€Å"Emancipation: the Caribbean Experience—Afro-Cuban Religion and Syncretism with the Catholic Religion.† Wilson, Olly. â€Å"On the Significance of the Relationship between African and Afro-American Music.† The Black Perspective in Music 2 (1974), 3-22.

E-Commerce In Latin America Essay -- Consumer Markets Business Essays

E-Commerce In Latin America Where Is It Now, Where Is It Going, Who Is Taking It There? In recent years, the media has made much of the growing consumer markets in Latin America. North Americans have to come to understand that much of the health of the U.S. economy is tied to the economic well-being of Latin countries such as Brazil and Mexico. Yet even with our awareness of the market size of our neighbors and awareness of our increasing interdependence, most North Americans consider the emerging Latin American markets to be underdeveloped, backwards, comprised of technologically unprepared people. How accurate is this conception, and specifically, what is the status of the Latin American market for e-commerce? In order to understand any market for the first time, one must answer several basic questions: How large is the market? How fast is it growing? What are the buying patterns in the market? How might they change? When will the market â€Å"take off?† What is blocking or helping market growth? Who is already in the marketplace? Who is likely to enter? This paper outlines the answers to these initial questions, and makes the case that North Americans need to pay attention to emerging Latin ecommerce markets- whether as advertisers, consumers, or trendwatchers. Market Size and Growth Rate As recently as August 1999, the Boston Consulting Group stated that on-line retailing in Latin America will reach $77 million in 1999. This figure represents web sales earned by Latin American based e-tailers. The same report states that an additional $90 million in revenues will be earned by U.S.-based online merchants this year. This results in a total of $167 million in domestic and international ecommerce r... ...n America, I will continue to follow these related trends with increased interest. [1] Emarketer, August 2, 1999, www.emarketer.com/estats/080299_beg.html. [2] Emarketer, June 28, 1999, Is Latin American eCommerce Ready to Take Off?, www.emarketer.com/estats/062899_latam.html. [3] Ibid. [4] eMarketer, Latin American Retail Ecommerce to Reach $160 Million, August 2, 1999, www.emarketer.com/estats/080299_beg.html. [5] Ibid. [6] eMarketer, March 22, 1999, Latin America Gets Fired Up for EC, www.emarketer.com/estats/032299_latin.html. [7] Emarketer, â€Å"Telephone Costs Holding Back Access In Latin America,† September 28, 1998, www.emarketer.com. [8] Ibid. [9] Emarketer, â€Å"UOL,† October 1999, www.emarketer.com. [10] Ibid. [11] â€Å"Building the First Web Brand in Latin America,† From metasearch using keyword â€Å"StarMedia.† [12] Ibid. E-Commerce In Latin America Essay -- Consumer Markets Business Essays E-Commerce In Latin America Where Is It Now, Where Is It Going, Who Is Taking It There? In recent years, the media has made much of the growing consumer markets in Latin America. North Americans have to come to understand that much of the health of the U.S. economy is tied to the economic well-being of Latin countries such as Brazil and Mexico. Yet even with our awareness of the market size of our neighbors and awareness of our increasing interdependence, most North Americans consider the emerging Latin American markets to be underdeveloped, backwards, comprised of technologically unprepared people. How accurate is this conception, and specifically, what is the status of the Latin American market for e-commerce? In order to understand any market for the first time, one must answer several basic questions: How large is the market? How fast is it growing? What are the buying patterns in the market? How might they change? When will the market â€Å"take off?† What is blocking or helping market growth? Who is already in the marketplace? Who is likely to enter? This paper outlines the answers to these initial questions, and makes the case that North Americans need to pay attention to emerging Latin ecommerce markets- whether as advertisers, consumers, or trendwatchers. Market Size and Growth Rate As recently as August 1999, the Boston Consulting Group stated that on-line retailing in Latin America will reach $77 million in 1999. This figure represents web sales earned by Latin American based e-tailers. The same report states that an additional $90 million in revenues will be earned by U.S.-based online merchants this year. This results in a total of $167 million in domestic and international ecommerce r... ...n America, I will continue to follow these related trends with increased interest. [1] Emarketer, August 2, 1999, www.emarketer.com/estats/080299_beg.html. [2] Emarketer, June 28, 1999, Is Latin American eCommerce Ready to Take Off?, www.emarketer.com/estats/062899_latam.html. [3] Ibid. [4] eMarketer, Latin American Retail Ecommerce to Reach $160 Million, August 2, 1999, www.emarketer.com/estats/080299_beg.html. [5] Ibid. [6] eMarketer, March 22, 1999, Latin America Gets Fired Up for EC, www.emarketer.com/estats/032299_latin.html. [7] Emarketer, â€Å"Telephone Costs Holding Back Access In Latin America,† September 28, 1998, www.emarketer.com. [8] Ibid. [9] Emarketer, â€Å"UOL,† October 1999, www.emarketer.com. [10] Ibid. [11] â€Å"Building the First Web Brand in Latin America,† From metasearch using keyword â€Å"StarMedia.† [12] Ibid.

My Metamorphosis to a Reasonably Confident Adult :: Personal Narrative Writing

My Metamorphosis to a Reasonably Confident Adult In grade school, I can remember being insulted and humiliated because I displayed traits some of my peers thought were feminine. I was informed that I walked, spoke, and generally behaved like a girl. I recall feelings of anger and resentment mixed with shame and self-consciousness. I wondered why I was being singled out. Now I realized that every boy who showed some trace of femininity was singled out, not just me. At the time, of course, I thought I was the only one. I tried to hypothesize about why I was being insulted. Maybe this pink shirt is too girlish, I thought. Maybe my hair is too long. Maybe there is just something wrong with me. As I entered junior high, I began to consciously eliminate any behaviors, mannerisms, etc. that could possibly be perceived as feminine. After all, fitting in with my sexist, homophobic peers was my main objective. I wore "masculine" clothing (dark colors, button-downs, workboots), got a short haircut, and lowered my voice about three octaves when I spoke. Gym class was my worst dread. As Cooper Thompson says, "Competitive activites . . . too easily become a lesson in the need for toughness, invulnerability, and dominance." This was one-hundred percent true in my junior high school. The most violent kids ruled the gym class, and they received the most recognition from the teacher. If one of them made a violent tackle in a football game, for instance, he would be applauded by the teacher, who called such kids "men." Of course, I felt like less than a man, because I couldn't play sports for my life. This horrible truth was exposed every time gym class met, and I was mortified. Frustrated with my ineptitude, I spent hours practicing by myself: shooting baskets, hitting baseballs, anything to gain some physical coordination. In retrospect, I laugh about how much effort I put into impressing my peers in gym class! Eventually, P.E. didn't humiliate me as much, but fear of ridicule prevented me from ever trying out for a team. In high school, I made a few good friends-people who like me for the way I was and didn't care if I was inept at certain things. However, feelings of insecurity still lingered. I was terrified that girls wouldn't like me if I didn't act like a real man (whatever that is).

Steel Toed Stilettos

Man is the subject; woman is the object. This is the major premise of the gender binary hierarchy. Man is dominant and the woman submissive, active and passive, rational and emotional, strong and weak. Hegemonic masculinity is the ‘maintenance of practices that institutionalize men's dominance over women' (Connell, 1997, p. 24). Emphasized femininity is compliance and the overall subordination of women to men (Connell). This will be an analysis of female strippers and those people in their environment, with special concern regarding the objectification of women, and the misleading emphasized femininity ascribed to dancers. Men are the customers thought of when designing a strip club; there are scantily clad women, sports or pornography on television sets, even pool tables and arcade games. He is the subject. The women are objectified, the use of a pseudonym, or stage name, distances the customers, and the dancers, from the strippers' lives outside the club. However, there are more parties involved than the customer and the dancer. The parties involved extend from the dancers to their agents, the club owners/managers, the municipal government as well as club support staff, photographers, promotional people, and others not discussed here. The agents, rarely female, must find a new club for the woman to work in every week and for this, they receive a fifteen percent commission. Agents have contracts with the dancers as well as the clubs. When and if any dancers complain about dirty working conditions and unfair labour practices, the agents quickly attempt to stop the denouncing. If a dancer wanted to sue a club for breach of contract, for instance, and the agents did not persuade her to stop, the treatment upon her return would be a sign that she was done in the strip clubs. The agent would blackball her from all clubs represented by his agency; in Alberta, ninety-eight percent of the clubs are under contract to one agency effectively ensuring the women's compliance and increasing the unlikelihood that someone might speak up. In addition to the club and dancer contracts they hold, they advocate breast implants and bleached blonde hair and pole dancing. If women do receive implants, show prices increase and instead of being a dancer, she can be a ‘walker'. Many feature performers simply walk around the stage and do not dance, an opportunity provided for them by their physical attributes. A classmate remarked in a discussion, â€Å"obviously the girls know how to dance, it's a basic job requirement. † The reality is breast implants can take centre stage and relegate a lack of rhythm to a dark corner backstage. The mainstream and the sex industry reward women who have breast implants. Those dancers with large breasts will receive more money per show than her colleague with the smaller cup size will receive if all other factors are equal. The municipal governments, specifically the City of Edmonton and the City of Calgary, require that all exotic dancers pass a security clearance to control for any drug or prostitution charges also, dancers must pay an annual fee of one hundred fifty dollars for a license. The city has increased their scrutiny in regards to one's security clearance in the past two years resulting in fewer women able to work in the city and others fearing that their past transgressions exposed to everyone making them ineligible for employment. A near rejection of one Edmonton dancer's license renewal illustrates the unintended effects of the security clearance; she was required to meet the police vice and discuss a charge on her record. There was a real possibility that she would not pass if she were unable to explain her charges. It was shoplifting, no conviction, just a charge, and occurred seven years prior. Why is it necessary for a stripper to gain security clearance? Are strippers inherently more dangerous? What kinds of threats do naked women pose? Fear of the criminality possessed by these women must not be the reason for these seemingly unnecessary procedures. If it was a predominately male profession, it is highly doubtful that the same processes would be in place. The fee of one hundred fifty dollars is significantly higher than bars or restaurants, but fortunately far below the annual three thousand dollars paid by escorts. Does the city equate strippers and escorts? The singling out of these two professions may suggest an equivocation. Why are retail workers not forced to have a license? One answer is that the government wants a share of the money these women work hard to receive. The documenting of the tips dancers receive and the money escorts receive is not necessarily reliable. These people may not fully declare their income on their taxes and the government is unable to verify the amounts. These licensing fees are in place to regulate the dancers but there is little regulation. This is another instance of the domination attempts on these females. The club owner/manager is male for the vast majority. These men tell the agents what kind of dancers they are seeking. The owner's preferences can result in the agents offering only certain women work; he may want only Caucasian women, waifs, or pop music blondes. The club owner holds absolutely the power to hire and fire. After first meeting a dancer or after her first show of the week, or at any time during the week, the manager can fire her, sometimes without pay. A woman's weight, breast size, muscle tone (be it too muscular or not enough), attractiveness, attitude, behaviour, past, are all reasons for dismissal. The fact that a woman could work an entire week, and be expecting a paycheque of eight hundred dollars only to be fired hours before she is to be paid seems unfair, oppressive, exploitive, etc. There is also the possibility that instead of receiving a paycheque, one could receive a bill. The attached hotel may be the only option in the town, deducted from the cheque, as well as telephone calls, bar tabs, restaurant bills, these alone could dramatically reduce a cheque and then there are fines. There are no fine regulations and can vary widely between clubs. Fines are also absolute, there is no appeal process, no possibility that the Stripper Protection Agency will raid the club and arrest the fine-happy manager. If a manager hates a dancer, he could allow her to dance the week only to surprise her with a page of fines for infractions she did not commit. Fines are in place to ensure job effectiveness, productivity and presence; they also lessen payrolls. Sanctions imposed for tardiness are generally one hundred dollars for every minute late for a show, no excuses. Missed shows range from two hundred fifty dollars to five hundred dollars plus the cost of the show. It is wholly within the manager's power to decide to double a dancer's fines. For example, during an interview with a dancer named Octavia, she told of when she was late for a show because her suitcase would not open, after a lengthy struggle the manager opened it by ripping the suitcase and then proceeded to fine her three hundred dollars for being late. She told the other dancers what had happened and they were outraged and informed the manager of such. He then doubled her fine because she had a ‘big mouth' and the other dancers were approaching him and scolding him for fining Octavia. It is a system that favors the club, adversarial to the dancer and easy to identify situations in which women could work a week for nothing, maybe less. Fired without pay and an excessive fine system are only two of the way women are overpowered, another is the unwillingness and the refusal to accept any reason to miss a show. These claims, legitimate or not, are for the vast majority of the time never taken seriously. The managers have ‘seen & heard it all before' and suspect a late night of alcohol and drugs are the cause of this day's ailment. The male aspects of the strip trade include the agents who have a monopoly on clubs and workers, almost all control over a dancer's placement, much say in the hiring of a dancer, and the power to ostracize a dancer. Spotlighting the municipal government and it is hard to miss its attempts to exploit working women. The club owners have the power, and exercise it, to fire without pay, fine exorbitant amounts of money over minutes, and refuse to believe any ailments that a woman is suffering from is anything more than a hangover. After that lengthy inspection of the males of the strip club culture, the attention focuses on the females, the dancers. In her article, Feminism, Marxism, Method and the State: An Agenda for Theory, Catharine A. MacKinnon (1982) states, â€Å"Socially, femaleness means femininity, which means attractiveness to men, which means sexual attractiveness, which means sexual availability on male terms†. If femaleness means femininity and dancers are female, if the factors of femininity as met it is true. Dancers are attractive to men, sexually attractive in fact. Interpreting sexual availability as a willing participant in sexual activity is valid; however, women can be available in general and not for a specific person. If this is correct then dancers exude femininity. They seem rather feminine, wearing form-fitting dresses, short skirts, and stiletto heels. Their make-up and hair are amazing emphasizing their attractiveness, and being naked is a sufficient condition for sexually attractive. It is appropriate to consider dancers feminine in relation to MacKinnon's article. The men think we do it because we love sex so much, we're sex-driven throbbing mattress kittens. But when we're on stage we're all virgins, and then we lock eyes with that one special guy and he might be the one to change all that . . . and then we lock eyes with the next guy and he might be the one to change all that. Men are so stupid. † Octavia's quote is an example of the have/hold discourse (Hollway, 1984). Wife or mistress, virgin or whore (or sex-driven throbbing mattress kittens) the dichotomy is the same and impossible to achieve. Expected to be the provocative, seductive, pure, inginue and obviously unable to fill the role, the dancer adopts a role not unlike that of a trucker. Rude, crude and crass, these women are tough. They have experienced volumes either in person, a close friend, or another dancer's recollection. Assertive, aggressive, controlled, rational are usually male-specific traits but dancers are often described as such. A power shift has occurred, any previous conceptions about women's subservience to men have vanished. On stage, strippers can make men do anything, falling over themselves to throw money to her, reduced to the basest of urges. After having seen one's oppressor with his pants around his ankles and his clown boxers showing, the power is not as apparent as it had been. If subsequently, the repeat viewing of the oppressor is in compromising, powerless situations, the oppressor ceases to exist, and it is simply another person. In the situation the power shifted to the dancers and the agent, the manager, the city government may exert some power over her; regardless the men at the strip club are waiting for her. Exotic dancers appear to be an ultimately sexual, feminine being. However, it is not always the case; they adopt attitudes perhaps better suited to their trucker or rig-working customers. The misconception that the dancers are waiting for that guy at the club is in light of the fact that many dancers have an utter hatred for males and they despise them while they smile and listen to his stories. The objectification that is present in the strip club may not be the dancers at all it may be the customer who is nothing other than a source for money. The personality traits, usually coded as masculine, embodied by these women, must aid them as they ‘hustle' to sell table dances, and convince the men to play loonie games. The transference of power, as experienced in the strip club, would be an empowering experience for all women. The possibility of it occurring is not absurd. The emphasized femininity some women adhere to is not going to increase the likelihood of this fundamental shift. However, if any change is to occur, solidarity must first be present.

The Characteristics and Nature of Organisations

THE CHARACTERISTICS AND NATURE OF ORGANISATIONS LEARNING OBJECTIVES: on completion of this topic you will have: Developed understanding of the nature and characteristics of organisations Identified generic organisational features An understanding of the different types of organisations An understanding of the role of the organisation as a ‘goals-led, open system’ An appreciation of environmental impacts on organisations Developed understanding of the process of organising Be able to distinguish between ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ organisation IntroductionOrganisations, or more simply, organised activities, are a central feature of every aspect of life. Indeed, it is extremely difficult – if not impossible! – to conceive of any activity which does not involve the input of one or more organisations at some or other stage. Think for a moment – most of us, for example, were born in hospitals, live in a family or other social unit, a ttend or have attended educational institutions, and have found, or seek, employment with an organisation. Small wonder, then, that the study of organisations has attracted so much attention over the years!Every organisation differs – in terms of nature, purpose, size, goals and objectives, membership – and so on (the list is almost endless! ). However, a number of core features and characteristics of organisational life can be identified. These form the focus for the discussions within this chapter. Organisations also form the context for all management activity – in fact, it could be argued that one of the main reasons why we need managers is the fact that we engage in so much organised activity. So an understanding of the nature, type and purpose of organisations is an essential prerequisite in order to manage effectively and efficiently.