Gender Roles, Feminism, And Feminism - 855 Words

Correspondently to breaking down gender roles, feminism plays an important role in Chicana/o literature. In Lopez’s Real Women Have Curves feminism is defined in accordance to the Chicana/o community and differently from 60s and 70s white feminism that did not considered intersectionalities (Ruiz, Lecture, 4/5/16). In the play Ana tries to empower the women by preaching about the power of taking control of their bodies, sexuality, and ultimate their destiny; however Estela harshly stops her with: â€Å"Ya, ya, Norma Rae, get off and get back to work!† and is supported by Panchas’s comment â€Å"Mira, all those gringas shouting about liberation hasn t done a thing for me†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Act 1, Scene 3). This reflects of the little affect or no affect at all of the liberation movement to women of color. This scene testifies that in order to have real women liberation that would benefit all women, feminism should be take a holistic approach and take inconsideration class, race, sexually and gender. At the same time, the play is a work of women of color feminism as it deconstructs the traditional idea of beauty (white, tall and skinny women) and highlights the importance of learning to love the drown body. In Act 2, Scene 3: the women undress and stop feeling ashamed for their stretch marks or for being what society considers oversized. Real Women Have Curves raises awareness of the importance to look at feminism from a holistic and cultural relativism approach without ignoring women of colorShow MoreRelatedFeminism And Gender Roles Importance1632 Words   |  7 PagesFeminism and Gender Roles Importance Involved in Identity in Characters Gender is one of the biggest ways we judge someone in our world today. Being a girl is typically a sign of being weak, powerless, and not as important. If a man was called a girl, it means they are being childish, or stupid about a certain situation. On the reverse, being a man comes with many expectations of power and strength as well as just being the bigger, better person. They say boys learn how to be a man from none otherRead MoreRepressed Feminism And Gender Roles934 Words   |  4 PagesInitially when I read this story I thought it was about a wife that was literally going crazy in her own house. But once I read it a second time, I discovered the underlying themes of suppressed feminism and gender roles. In one of the opening lines the narrator mentions how she doesn’t have a voice and her husband made diagnoses without really even listening to how she was feeling. The narrator tried to explain to her illness to her family, but since her husband who is also her physic ian, reassuredRead MoreModern Day Feminism And Gender Roles Essay1221 Words   |  5 PagesFeminist of today are considered third-wave feminists, which focus on abolishing gender roles through the actions of assertiveness, power and control of their own sexuality. At first glance, Games of Thrones appears to be nothing more than mansanstic fantasy. Everywhere in the show women are hypersexualized and casted into their predisposed gender roles. In the first season every episode follows this trends, of men holding all the power in society and women being objects. Women were only presentedRead MoreFeminism And Gender Roles By Margaret Atwood1518 Words   |  7 Pagesnumerous portrayals of feminism and gender roles. There are underlying hints of distaste towards the female sex role and the predatory, aggressive behaviour of men towards women. The suppression of women is portrayed and analyzed, and Surfacing manages to tackle the theme of gender roles by exploring through the perspecti ve of the female narrator how women are marginalized in many aspects of their lives. . Surfacing makes a case for strong women that defy stereotypical gender roles and portrays how menRead MoreGender Roles And Issues Regarding Feminisms And Masculinity939 Words   |  4 PagesGender in Popular Culture Gender is very crucial element in the American popular culture. What comes in mind when we talk about gender in the American popular culture so many questions go through the mind. The questions will go back to the gender roles and issues concerning feminisms and masculinity. One may question any advantage of being a male to a female because this is where stereotypes are arising especially in the American popular culture. Many scholars have written on gender and culture;Read More To Kill A Mockingbird Essay: Gender Roles and Feminism1324 Words   |  6 PagesGender Roles and Feminism in To Kill a Mockingbird When the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, was written by Harper Lee, the Southern United States was still clinging tightly to traditional values. Southern societies pressured men to behave as gentlemen, and women were expected to be polite and wear dresses. These stringent gender roles were adhered to in small southern towns because they were isolated from the more progressive attitudes in other areas of the United States. Harper Lee documentsRead MoreFeminism, Gender Roles : Madame Bovary, By Gustave Flaubert1876 Words   |  8 PagesINTRO TO CONCEPT OF FEMINISM, GENDER ROLES Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert, was one of the most significant novels during the period of the French Revolution. This work of art was one of the most provoking of its time due to its unromantic nature, which was very eccentric compared to his contemporaries. Instead of centering this literary work on romanticism, Flaubert depicted adultery and literary theories such as feminism. These aspects of literature were not common in France, and were tabooRead MorePost-Colonial Female Gender Roles and Feminism in Haiti1637 Words   |  7 Pagessuch as the color of your skin, the amount of money or property you own, where you were born, or your gender. Gender roles and marginalization have existed in Haiti existed since the era of slavery and the issues have persisted throughout the country’s post-revolutionary history. In more recent history, there have been more Haitian women who have become politically active and a Haitian feminism movement has emerged. In this paper, I wi ll explore the various ways in which Haitian women have beenRead MoreAnalysis of Gender Roles and Feminism through an Episode of the Big Bang Theory1828 Words   |  8 Pagesdifferent when men and women define and evaluate gender identities and behaviors. Secondly, men and women will exhibit different personal characteristics in terms of various social status, occupations, personal ideologies, gender superiorities, etc. Thirdly, the social ideologies manifested by outside world and the subjective ideologies formed by people themselves have complicated differences as well, in such a social environment, various gender ideologies mutually interacted and linked, thereforeRead MoreHow William Shakespeare And Carol Ann Duffys Subverting The Gender Roles Of Gender And Feminism1430 Words   |  6 PagesWilliam Shakespeare and Carol Ann Duffy subvert traditional roles of gender and sexuality in â€Å"From Mrs Tiresias† and â€Å"Sonnet 20†? Both Carol Ann Duffy in â€Å"From Mrs Tiresias† and William Shakespeare in â€Å"Sonnet 20† subvert male gender roles by presenting the male protagonists with physical female traits. Both poets differ in their presentation of traditional gender roles and sexuality. In â€Å"From Mrs Tiresias†, Carol Ann Duffy subverts the gender role of men as strong masculine men, playing on the modern

Role of Women in Pakistan Free Essays

Women in Pakistan were initially thought to play the traditional role of being housewives. However with changing times, the Pakistani society has also evolved. Women have a much significant role to play in the society rather than serving their husbands at home. We will write a custom essay sample on Role of Women in Pakistan or any similar topic only for you Order Now During this time of economic crisis when men are suffering from unemployment and lower wages, households require all members of the family to work and add to the family income. So the wives have to go out and work so that they could earn enough to give their families a sufficient standard of living. Women belonging to the lower income group and rural class have since independence played the role of family earners. They have served in households by rendering their services such as that of cooks, servants, cleaners, etc. While the lower class women worked all day to earn two meals per day for their families, women of the middle class were supposed to stay at home and take care of the people living in their homes. However when the world entered the 21st century the position of women in the country transpired. More women were allowed to acquire higher education and then work in the corporate world to earn for themselves and their families. Women in Pakistan now form a relatively greater part of Pakistan’s working population and their contribution to the country’s economy has ever since been increasing. However men still dominate all the higher posts in private and public offices, the trend is now changing as women are being encouraged by being awarded with promotions for their high quality of work. The mindset of the people in the rural class is also changing, there is greater awareness regarding the importance of education for both boys and girls and there has been an increase in the enrollment of lower income class girls in primary and secondary schools. Almost all of the women belonging to the middle class families have now started acquiring higher education. The trend of getting girls married as soon as they enter their 20s is slowly diminishing because today’s men only want to marry women who have acquired a substantial level of education. Women in Pakistan also have a major role to play as housewives and mothers. They are the ones responsible for the upbringing of their children. Since women have now become educated they can teach their children the values and etiquettes of life. Not only that, women could now teach their own children at home after they come back from school. Previously families had to spend excessive amounts of their income to send their children for tuitions because the mothers were not educated enough to guide their children academically but now with most mothers being educated they could sit with their children and help them with their homework. Although there is greater acceptability for women in Pakistan’s society, they are still victims of discrimination. The gender stereotypes which have existed in the society for years still continue to be a barrier for women’s progress in the country. How to cite Role of Women in Pakistan, Papers

The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man Essay Example

The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man Essay The indefinite status accorded James Weldon Johnsons The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (1912) is, to a great extent, attributable to its standing as the first fictional text written by an African American that deliberately masks its genre. The confessional frame is a guise, self-consciously employed by Johnson to authenticate the main characters story, strategically to give the text the appearance of an autobiography. From the onset, the narrative co-mingles genres; like its racially hybrid narrator, the text itself is a kind of narrative message. Moreover, Johnson represents a fictional anti-hero, a black man who chooses to pass for a white man who need not negotiate the hardships of race relations in America. As a consequence, The Autobiography is a thematic departure from its autobiographical predecessors, Booker T. Washingtons â€Å"Up from Slavery† (1901) and W. E. B. Du Boiss â€Å"The Souls of Black Folk† (1903). It also departs from traditional narrative representations of passing such as those found in the late 19th-century novels of Frances Harper and Charles Chesnutt. Still, Johnson was a publicly acclaimed race man. The intrigue of his formal variations is that he knowingly wrote such hybrid anathema in the highly charged racial climate of a rabidly Jim Crow era. The narrative line of The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, then, as a result of what might be considered the works contending forces, operates along several discursive lines, including a false fictional representation of the narrator, Johnsons own political reflections and theories and signifying riffs on conventions from the books literary ancestors. We will write a custom essay sample on The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer Themes such as black uplift, racial pride, and social responsibilityborrowed from antedating black autobiographical and fictional worksclash with the ideological position that the narrator must espouse to justify his own politically charged identity choices. The Autobiographys manifold positions create a writerly tension that is inherent and identifiable in the text, a tension that serves, finally, to undermine the integrity of the first-person narrative voice. Clearly, Johnsons ability to conjure and craft his anti-heroic protagonist is thwarted by historical circumstances surrounding his writing and by his own political sensibilities. The socio-historical circumstances framing Johnsons act of writing, principally the struggle for black enfranchisement, plainly conflict with the narrators portraiture. Although conventions of form would seem predisposed to a close subjective connection between the author and the narrator, the narrative occasion of Johnsons endeavor is such that the views upheld by the narrator are often radically divergent from those of his creator. Johnson, then, is writing out of what Houston A. Baker, Jr. , in Turning South Again (2001), has termed a tight place: Tight places are constituted by the necessity to articulate from a position that combines specters of humiliation (slavery), multiple subjects and signifiers, figurative obligations of race in America (to speak Negro or for Negroes†), and patent sex and gender implications. At the center of Bakers theoretical formulations is the notion that the black male subject at the turn into the twentieth century is always already framed in relation to the dominant white social structure and thus affirms, subverts, or at least navigates through a social arrangement marked by domination and defeat, the white publics network of opinions and desires, and the always undecided cultural compromises of occupancy and desire: Who moves? Who doesnt? still, the early 20th-century textual black subject is also located within what Claudia Tate describes as a firmly entrenched black male heroic liberation dialogue, the contours of which shape another kind of tight space, one in which there tacitly exist agreed upon rules governing black male subjectivity and its literary representation within the black public sphere. We might say, then, that Johnson writes out of a doubly determined tight space. The aforementioned withstanding, it is curious that Johnson would embark upon the n arrative experiment that is The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man in such a vexed environment. Why did he engage such risky genre crossing business at precisely what the black historian Rayford Logan calls the lowest point of Jim Crow racism in America? Passing for White, Passing for Man, the impetus fueling Johnsons narrative experiment seems clearer if one summons to view the African American male writerly tradition. In his own autobiography â€Å"Along This Way, Johnson maintains that he expected that the title The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man would immediately reveal the works ironic inflections and unspoken relationship to prevailing discourses on black male subjectivity. He writes: When I chose the title, it was without the slightest doubt that its meaning would be perfectly clear to anyone. Although Johnsons ironic title borders on satire, the discursive subversion marked by satire is meaningless without a clear contextualization of the black male literary enterprise upon which satire would, as it were, signify. The scholar William Andrews has provided the most astute account available of this enterprise. He asserts that in the African American novel, at the turn into the twentieth century, the leading characters almost always have a choice between self-interest and self-sacrifice in the name of uplifting the race. Generally, the choice is in favor of the latter. Johnsons text reverses the norms of the dilemma described by Andrews. His narrator chooses self-interest. As such, while other works reveal the heros growing racial awareness, Johnsons Autobiography plots the anti-heros movement toward racial disengagement. In brief, Johnsons representation of the first-person narrator invokes the myth of the heroic black malethen inverts it. Within the context of an already established African American male protest tradition that links the proud display of masculinity with the struggle for racial justice, Johnsons narrator invites criticism as a failed race man and a failed man, for he has chosen to passa choice that symbolizes synonymous rejection of both social equality and masculine pride. To locate The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man vis-a-vis the thematic and formal expectations framing its production, it is useful to elaborate Tates formulation of the black heroic liberation discursive project. Even before Du Bois theorized the emasculation of black men as an ease of slavery, speaking as he did of the red stain of â€Å"bastardy, and the twin evils of segregation and poverty, Frederick Douglass had already discursively connected racial oppression and black emasculation. His famous statement, You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man, at once fore-grounded both the emasculating character of slavery and its reversal. Douglasss assertion of physical strength and defiance in which he throttles the slave breaker Covey, the man to whom he has been hired out to be broken, revived within [him] a sense of [his] own manhood. Black manhood is reconstituted by way of physical encounter, transmuting Douglass from a slave in fact to a slave in form alone. Du Boiss The Souls of Black Folk later yokes masculinity and racial responsibility, placing these constructs in dialectical relation to material acquisition and rugged individualism. Du Bois, speaking directly against Booker T. Washingtonian strategies for social change, says: If we make money the object of man-training, we shall develop money-makers but not necessarily men; if we make technical skill the object of our education, we may possess artisans but not, in nature, men. Men we shall have only as we make manhood the object of the work of the schools this is the curriculum of that Higher Education which must underlie true life. James Weldon Johnsons only novel, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, charts the restless movement of a light-skinned man across boundaries of race, class, and region in turn-of-the-century America. Johnson (1871–1938) began writing what would be his most famous work in 1905, at a moment marked by his own restlessness. Only five years earlier, Johnson had joined his brother, J. Rosamond Johnson, in New York City to write song lyrics for musical theater, leaving behind his relatively settled life in Jacksonville, Florida, as a high school principal and newspaper editor who had recently passed the state bar and was engaged to be married. The Johnsons, along with their partner Bob Cole, quickly became the most successful African American songwriting team in musical theater. But while Johnson enjoyed this success, and the influence it brought, he soon found himself craving escape and a little stillness of the spirit, as he put it in his memoir, Along This Way: The Autobiography of James Weldon Johnson (p. 223). He enrolled in literature classes at Columbia, began writing poetry and what would become his novel, and cultivated his connections in politics. With the help of Booker T. Washington, he was appointed U. S. consul in Venezuela (1906) and Nicaragua (1909–1913), and at the latter post, he wrote the bulk of The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man and saw it published, anonymously, by the small Boston house of Sherman, French and Company in 1912. As its title suggests, The Autobiography is a first-person account of the life of a man who has disavowed his blackness, offering its readers a perspective on American race relations from one who has lived on both sides of the color line. With its authors name withheld, the works first reviewers generally took the claims of its preface, attributed to the publishers though probably written by Johnson himself, at face value: this was a work of sociological interest, offering the (presumed white) reader an authentic view of the inner life of the Negro in America (p. xl). Several black critics saw through its nonfictional guise (Jessie Fauset in The Crisis, for example, suggested it was fiction based on fact), and some southern white reviewers insisted it was fiction on the basis that a black man could never actually pass as white.

Quotes From A Passage to India by E.M. Forster

Quotes From A Passage to India by E.M. Forster A Passage to India is a famous modern novel by E.M. Forester. Set during the English colonization of India, the novel dramatically depicts some of the conflicts between the Indian people and the colonial government. Here are a few quotes from A Passage to India. So abased, so monotonous is everything that meets the eye, that when the Ganges comes down it might be expected to wash the excrescence back into the soil. Houses do fall, people are drowned and left rotting, but the general outline of the town persists, welling here, shrinking there, like some low but indestructible form of life.- E.M. Forster, A Passage to India, Ch. 1On the second rise is laid out the little civil station, and viewed hence Chandrapore appears to be a totally different place. It is a city of gardens. It is no city, but a forest sparsely scattered with huts. It is a tropical pleasaunce washed by a noble river.- E.M. Forster, A Passage to India, Ch. 1They all become exactly the same, not worse, not better. I give any Englishman two years, be he Turton or Burton. It is only the difference of a letter. And I give any English woman six months. All are exactly alike.- E.M. Forster, A Passage to India, Ch. 2He has found out our dinner hour, thats all, and chooses to inter rupt us every time, in order to show his power.- E.M. Forster, A Passage to India, Ch. 2 A Mosque by winning his approval let loose his imagination. The temple of another creed, Hindu, Christian, or Greek, would have bored him and failed to awaken his sense of beauty. Here was Islam, his own country, more than a Faith, more than a battle cry, more, much more.- E.M. Forster, A Passage to India, Ch. 2Islam an attitude towards life both exquisite and durable, where his body and his thoughts found their home.- E.M. Forster, A Passage to India, Ch. 2That makes no difference. God is here.- E.M. Forster, A Passage to India, Ch. 2As he strolled down hill beneath the lovely moon, and again saw the lovely mosque, he seemed to own the land as much as anyone who owned it. What did it matter if a few flabby Hindus had preceded him there, and a few chilly English succeeded.- E.M. Forster, A Passage to India, Ch. 2I want to see the real India.- E.M. Forster, A Passage to India, Ch. 3Come on, Indias not as bad as all that. Other side of the earth, if you like, but we stick to the same o ld moon.- E.M. Forster, A Passage to India, Ch. 3 Adventures do occur, but not punctually.- E.M. Forster, A Passage to India, Ch. 3In England the moon had seemed dead and alien; here she was caught in the shawl of night together with earth and all other stars. A sudden sense of unity, of kinship with the heavenly bodies, passed into the old woman and out, like water through a tank, leaving a strange freshness behind.- E.M. Forster, A Passage to India, Ch. 3It is easy to sympathize at a distance. I value more the kind word that is spoken close to my ear.- E.M. Forster, A Passage to India, Ch. 4No, no, this is going to far. We must exclude someone from our gathering, or we shall be left with nothing.- E.M. Forster, A Passage to India, Ch. 4No, it was not picturesque; the East, abandoning its secular magnificence, was descending into a valley whose farther side no man can see.- E.M. Forster, A Passage to India, Ch. 5Because India is part of the earth. And God has put us on the earth in order to be pleasant to each other. God is love.- E.M. Forster, A Passage to India, Ch. 5 he did not realize that white has no more to do with a colour than God save the King with a god, and that it is the height of impropriety to consider what it does connote.- E.M. Forster, A Passage to India, Ch. 7A mystery is only a high sounding term for a muddle. No advantage in stirring it up, in either case. Aziz and I know well that India is a muddle.- E.M. Forster, A Passage to India, Ch. 7Aziz was exquisitely dressed, from tie-pin to spats, but he had forgotten his back-collar stud, and there you have the Indian all over; inattention to detail, the fundamental slackness that reveals the race.- E.M. Forster, A Passage to India, Ch. 8 Her hand touched his, owing to a jolt, and one of the thrills so frequent in the animal kingdom passed between them, and announced that their difficulties were only a lovers quarrel.- E.M. Forster, A Passage to India, Ch. 8And when the whole world behaves as such, there will be no more purdah?- E.M. Forster, A Passage to India, Ch. 11But he [Aziz] himself was rooted in society and Islam. He belonged to a tradition, which bound him, and he had brought children into the world, the society of the future. Though he lived so vaguely in this flimsy bungalow, nevertheless he was placed, placed.- E.M. Forster, A Passage to India, Ch. 11All the love he felt for her at the Mosque welled up again, the fresher for forgetfulness.- E.M. Forster, A Passage to India, Ch. 13You keep your religion, I mine. That is best. Nothing embraces the whole of India, nothing, nothing and that was Akbars mistake.- E.M. Forster, A Passage to India, Ch. 14But suddenly, at the edge of her mind, Religion appeared, po or little talkative Christianity, and she knew that all its divine words from Let there be light to It is finished only amounted to boum.- E.M. Forster, A Passage to India, Ch. 14 I have had twenty five years experience of this countryand twenty five years seemed to fill the waiting room with their staleness and ungeneroisityand during those twenty five years, I have never known anything but disaster result when English people and Indians attempt to be intimate socially.- E.M. Forster, A Passage to India, Ch. 17They are not to blame, they have not a dogs chancewe should be like them if we settled here.- E.M. Forster, A Passage to India, Ch. 18They had started speaking of women and children, that phrase that exempts the male from sanity when it has been repeated a few times.- E.M. Forster, A Passage to India, Ch. 20But every humane act in the East is tainted with officialism, and while honoring him they condemned Aziz and India.- E.M. Forster, A Passage to India, Ch. 20The sound had spouted after her when she escaped, and was going on still like a river that gradually floods the plain. Only Mrs. Moore could drive it back to its source and seal the broken reserv oir. Evil was loose...she could hear it entering the lives of others.- E.M. Forster, A Passage to India, Ch. 22 Her Christian tenderness had gone, or had developed into hardness, a just irritation against the human race; she had taken no interest at the arrest, asked scarcely any questions, and had refused to leave her bed on one awful last night of Mohurram, when an attack was expected on the bungalow.- E.M. Forster, A Passage to India, Ch. 22As soon as she landed in India, it seemed to her good, and when she saw the water flowing through the mosque tank, or the Ganges, or the moon caught in the shawl of night with all the other stars, it seemed a beautiful goal and an easy one.- E.M. Forster, A Passage to India, Ch. 23by what right did they claim so much importance in the world and assume the title of civilization?- E.M. Forster, A Passage to India, Ch. 24Ronnys religion was of the sterilized Public School brand, which never goes bad, even in the tropics. Wherever he entered, mosque, cave or temple, he retained the spiritual outlook of the fifth form, and condemned as weakening any attempt t o understand them.- E.M. Forster, A Passage to India, Ch. 28 The poem for Mr. Bhattacharya never got written, but it had an effect. It led him towards the vague and bulky figure of a mother-land. He was without natural affection for the land of his birth, but the Marabar Hills drove him to it. Half closing his eyes, he attempted to love India.- E.M. Forster, A Passage to India, Ch. 30Suspicion in the Oriental is a sort of malignant tumor, a mental malady, that makes him self-conscious and unfriendly suddenly; he trusts and mistrusts at the same time in a way the Westerner can not comprehend. It is his demon, as the Westerners is hypocrisy.- E.M. Forster, A Passage to India, Ch. 32Thus Godbole, though she was not important to him, remembered an old woman he had met in Chandrapore days. Chance brought her into his mind while it was in this heated state, he did not select her, she happened to occur among the throng of soliciting images, a tiny splinter, and he impelled her by his spiritual force to that place where completeness can be found.- E.M . Forster, A Passage to India, Ch. 33 My heart is for my own people henceforward.- E.M. Forster, A Passage to India, Ch. 35Then you are an Oriental.- E.M. Forster, A Passage to India, Ch. 36But the horses didnt want it-they swerved apart; the earth didnt want it, sending up rocks through which riders must pass single file; the temples, the tank, the jail, the palace, the birds, the carrion, the Guest House, that came into view as they issued from the gap and saw Mau beneath: they didnt want it, they said in their hundred voices, No, not yet, and the sky said, No, not there.- E.M. Forster, A Passage to India, Ch. 37

Grand Tour of Europe in the 17th and 18th Centuries

Grand Tour of Europe in the 17th and 18th Centuries Young English elites of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries often spent two to four years traveling around Europe in an effort to broaden their horizons and learn about language, architecture, geography, and culture in an experience known as the Grand Tour. The Grand Tour began in the sixteenth century and gained popularity during the seventeenth century. Origin of the Grand Tour The term Grand Tour was introduced by Richard Lassels in his 1670 book Voyage to Italy. Additional guidebooks, tour guides, and the tourist industry were developed and grew to meet the needs of the 20-something male and female travelers and their tutors across the European continent. The young tourists were wealthy and could afford the multiple years abroad. They carried letters of reference and introduction with them as they departed from southern England. Dover to Calais The most common crossing of the English Channel (La Manche) was made from Dover to Calais, France (the route of the Channel Tunnel today). A trip from Dover across the Channel to Calais and onto Paris customarily took three days. The crossing of the Channel was not an easy one. There were risks of seasickness, illness, and even shipwreck. Paris, Rome, and Venice Were Not to Be Missed The Grand Tourists were primarily interested in visiting those cities that were considered the major centers of culture at the time - Paris, Rome, and Venice were not to be missed. Florence and Naples were also popular destinations. The Grand Tourist would travel from city to city and usually spend weeks in smaller cities and up to several months in the three key cities. Paris was definitely the most popular city as French was the most common second language of the British elite, the roads to Paris were excellent, and Paris was a most impressive city to the English. Highway Robbers and Letters of Credit A Tourist would not carry much money due to the risk of highway robbers so letters of credit from their London banks were presented at the major cities of the Grand Tour. Many Tourists spent a great deal of money abroad and due to these expenditures outside of England, some English politicians were very much against the institution of the Grand Tour. Paris Apartment and Day Trips Arriving in Paris, a Tourist would usually rent an apartment for weeks to several months. Day trips from Paris to the French countryside or to Versailles (the home of the French monarchy) were quite common. Visiting French and Italian royalty and British envoys was a popular pastime during the Tour. The homes of envoys were often utilized as hotels and food pantries which annoyed the envoys but there wasnt much they could do about such inconveniences brought on by their citizens. While apartments were rented in major cities, in smaller towns the inns were often harsh and dirty. Across the Alps ora Boat on the Mediterranean to Italy From Paris, Tourists would proceed across the Alps or take a boat on the Mediterranean Sea to Italy. For those who made their way across the Alps, Turin was the first Italian city theyd come to and some remained while others simply passed through on their way to Rome or Venice. Rome was initially the southernmost point they would travel. However, when excavations began of Herculaneum (1738) and Pompeii (1748), the two sites became major destinations on the Grand Tour. Other Locations Other locations included as part of some Grand Tours included Spain and Portugal, Germany, Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and the Baltic. However, these other spots lacked the interest and historical appeal of Paris and Italy and had substandard roads that made travel much more difficult so they remained off most itineraries. The Main Activities While the goal of the Grand Tour was educational a great deal of time was spent on more frivolous pursuits such as extensive drinking, gambling, and intimate encounters. The journals and sketches that were supposed to be completed during the Tour were often left quite blank. Upon Return to England Upon their return to England, Tourists were supposedly ready to begin the responsibilities of an aristocrat. The Grand Tour as an institution was ultimately worthwhile for the Tour has been given credit for a dramatic improvement in British architecture and culture. The French Revolution in 1789 marked the end of the Grand Tour for in the early nineteenth century, railroads totally changed the face of tourism and travel across the continent.

China, India and Japan all face significant challenges with regard to Essay

China, India and Japan all face significant challenges with regard to their technological capabilities. What are these challenges and how likely are they to be overcome over the following two decades - Essay Example As such, both China and India need to invest more on R&D to compete at the same level with the developed countries in the next two decades. Conversely, while Japan’s technological capabilities are more advanced compared to China and India, Japan faces a challenge because of its protectionist policies. These policies impact negatively on Japan’s cooperation with other countries in terms of sharing knowledge. In addition, the country is faced with an aging population and thus; there is need for the country to access human capital abroad. This means that, Japan has to open up to the outside world by embracing trade liberalisation (Norma & Danny 2002, p.36). This paper examines the significant challenges faced by China, India and Japan with regard to their technological capabilities. As an emerging economy, the technological capability of China requires a focus on innovations. However, it is emerging that both the state and private sector is not aggressive in terms of improving innovations. A lack of a focus on basic research is an impediment to China’s technological capabilities. Most business enterprises in China do not engage in basic research, and this leads to imitation of foreign products. The country further has a weak system for managing rights related to intellectual property. This creates a situation where piracy is rampant in china, and impacts negatively on the country’s technological capabilities (Andrew 2005, p.16). On another note, since SMEs plays a critical role in advancing innovations, China faces a challenge in the sense that, their SMEs lack adequate funds and human resources to carry out large scale innovations. While China boasts of cheap labour, this is detrimental to its technology in the sense that, this leads to the production of poor quality products that is sold cheaply in the global market. As a result of the rising costs of production

Jersey Shore Reality TV Analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Jersey Shore Reality TV Analysis - Essay Example This "Jersey Shore Reality TV Analysis" essay outlines the main problems of Jersey Shore reality TV. Reality TV shows have become a controversial issue. Several scholars have raised questions regarding the deceitful realism depicted in several reality TV shows. Most reality TV shows are characterized by stereotypes and unearned celebrity. To some scholar, using the term â€Å"reality TV† to refer to some shows is misleading since the shows are characterized by fabricated reactions accomplished in contrived situations. Bignell, Fiske, Barnet-Weiser, and Portwood-Stacer feel that reality TV programs should focus on how ordinary people behave without too much exaggeration. In their opinion, reality shows should focus more on passing an ideology and not on the individual taking part in the show. Jersey Shore is a reality TV show that has been debated on my several scholars. Though considered a reality show, Jersey Shore demonstrates promiscuity, stereotyping, and abuse of alcohol. The shore pays more attention to the personal behaviors and opinions of the casts and not on ideologies. This has resulted in a lot of criticism from scholars who feel that the show is unrealistic since it dwells too much on negative aspects. One such negative aspect is the depiction of feminism in the twenty-first Century. Nicole, who is one of the main casts being idolized by several American teenagers, considers herself a modern woman. She considers herself a good example of feminist but engages in endless clubbing and gets drunks often. , gets drunks often, and engages in sexual intercourse with any man. Additionally, she feels that clubbing at night with her male colleagues makes her equal with them. This is a distorted portrayal of equality and it depicts denigration of feminism. This kind of feminism is what Barnet-Weiser and Portwood-Stacer (259) refer as â€Å"as testimony for the collapse of identity with representation.† Although the Jersey shore tries to depict girls as strong and independent, the depiction is erroneous. Barnet-Weiser and Portwood-Stacer would have opposed and criticized such a depiction of feminism. This is because the two believe that such portrayal of feminism is â€Å"a symptom and effect of gender oppression.† In the shore, the male casts underrate the female cast. The female thus engage in activities such as clubbing in an attempt to prove the men wrong (Barnet-Weiser and Portwood-Stacer 260). According to Fiske (5), â€Å"It is by no means natural for television to repr esent reality in the way that it does, just as it is by no means natural for language to do so.† Fiske considers most reality Television to be unrealistic. He claims that all television shows relies on codes to construct reality. In case of Jersey shore, most happenings are idealistic. A good example is the pretense that the casts are of Italian American origin, yet they