Promotional Effectiveness of an Advertisement Essay Example for Free

Promotional Effectiveness of an Advertisement Essay This paper will examine the effectiveness of an advertisement for Giorgio Armani’s fragrance for men found in Men’s Health magazine. Focusing on the specifics of the ad, analysis will be done to depict the ins and outs of how the advertisement is conveying its message to the reader. To understand how marketers exploit their products to the consumers, the dynamics of an ad can be studied. Assessing the advertisement on a few important characteristics such as how the product is differentiated from the competitors, is there a need for redesign to obtain a more universal appeal, or are there any triggers which might evoke some negative emotions towards the product. The ad is a full page, double sided ad in the magazine. This is one of many fragrance promotions which are found throughout the magazine. To assess the characteristics of the ad, a number of questions can be asked to depict if there is room from improvement to effectively relay the marketer’s promotion. Promotional Effectiveness of an Advertisement Assessing the characteristics of an advertisement can lead to an understanding of how marketers promote their products to the consumer in effective or not so effective ways. Thumbing through Men’s Health magazine there are numerous ads. In fact, there seems to be an ad on every other page screaming out at the reader. To differentiate their product from other competitors, marketers have the task of effectively appealing to a universal customer without sacrificing the effectiveness of the target segment. In some cases there is a glaring need for a possible redesign or some other way to improve the advertisement. The strategies used by marketers to promote the Giorgio Armani’s fragrance can be assessed through a number of questions focusing on the effectiveness of the advertisement. According to Mullins and Walker Jr. (2010), identifying and having a clear understanding of the target market is essential for the planning and implementation of an effective promotional program (p. 368). By asking whether or not the ad effectively communicates the products benefits is a basic start and exactly what marketers want to relay to the reader. The target market is men who are reading through Men’s Health who come across this ad to see a young, attractive looking man in black and white photo with the fragrance bottle in the corner. On the other side a clear, bright picture of a wave crashing with a bottle of the fragrance in front of the wave. The marketers want the reader to see the benefits of being in the elite class of young, sleek looking men who wear the Armani fragrance. Marketers push a message of distinguished men wear our product. The wave gives the reader a feeling of clean, cool, and refreshing emotions and benefits from wearing the fragrance. Marketers use these pictures to convey the message of the products benefits. For marketers, differentiating from the competition is an important factor in promoting a product. In a magazine specifically for men, marketers of all big name brands take out full page ads to promote their individual product. Mullins and Walker Jr. (2010), mention that print media is much different than broadcast media because the reader selects the advertisement they want to read and take as much time as they want to read it (p. 354). With the Armani ad, there is a simple shot of a young man starring at the camera and a bottle in the corner. The back side has a flip up part to sample the fragrance. Thumbing through the rest of the magazine there are nine other, full paged fragrance ads located in the front of the magazine and most have a flip up sample on the back. All of them have a young attractive man looking at the camera in some similar variations of the Armani ad. Of course the fragrances all have their unique smell and that is a matter of taste in the consumer’s mind, but esthetically, the ad is not different at all. Improvements to better their uniqueness and elite class could be made. The market segment targeted in the ad is based on the person who is most likely to pick up a Men’s Health magazine, men. This might mean young or old but typically a young man in his twenties, thirties, forties, and maybe fifties. Marketers for Armani already have an advantage in knowing who are most likely to be the readers of Men’s Health and can narrow down their strategies to direct them towards the appropriate market segment. The ad is basically designed to have a universal appeal without sacrificing its effectiveness at the targeted segment and there really is not enough visual or literate information on the advertisement to trigger any real negative emotions towards the product, however, there could be room for improvement in some marketing strategies to improve the advertisement. The advertisement for Armani’s fragrance is clearly based around the sample of the fragrance on the back side which serves as the hook to get men craving that smell. There is not much that a marketer can do if the consumer does not enjoy the smell of the fragrance. However, to differentiate the product from the competitors’ products, a possible change in the typical shot of a man starring into the camera could improve the advertisement by creating interest in the uniqueness of the ad. The ad is in black and white which is different than the rest, but a change in the esthetics of the ad might separate Armani from the completion. An article in the Journal of American Academy of Business (2011) describes the importance of evaluating the marketing strategy. Possible improvements can be made in the advertisement for Armani by evaluating how effective there ad is with selling their product. Selecting and placing more importance on the pricing strategy might improve the effectiveness of the ad. The company could run a bundle deal with the different sized bottles. If the market segment is men, an attractive woman might get readers to stop more often. Celebrities always seem to push products well so maybe an endorsement could help. In the end, setting a clear and measurable objective can only be effective if it is evaluated right. Marketing managers for Armani face strategic decisions about how they can create a need and want for their fragrance. In the medium of print, marketers can narrow down their targeted market to exploit their product further and analyze what gets readers to select their promotional advertisement to read. Communicating the benefits, differentiating the product form competitors, identifying the market segment targeted, and analyzing the appeal of the product are ways to analyze the effectiveness of the promotion and find room for improvement if any. The Armani advertisement conveys a clear benefit through the use of their product by appealing to a targeted segment, but could use improvements in differentiating their strategies from the competition.

The Mother Essay Example for Free

The Mother Essay â€Å"The Mother: Remember the children you got that you did not get† Gwendolyn Brooks’ poem â€Å"The Mother† is ambiguous and totally unexpected. The narrator starts by speaking about abortion in a very accusatory tone. In the first part of the poem the narrator uses second person language and accuses mothers of getting abortions and talks about how all the mothers will be missing out on seeing their children grow. She is talking to readers about abortions in general. She talks to mothers and patronizes them, â€Å"Abortions will never let you forget. You remember the children you got that you did not get.† (1-2), she starts the poem with a paradox. The narrator sounds like an antiabortion and will speak for having a child; but as the poem came to an ending it seemed like she is trying to justify her own actions. As the poem goes on the speaker suddenly changes her language and starts to talk about herself in a first person language. She explains how she cannot forget how many children she has killed. From the second part of the poem she starts to talk about her children, which meant that she had not one but multiple abortions and now is haunted by it. She starts to talk about her pain and loss about not having a child, â€Å"I have heard in the voices of the wind the voices of my dim killed children. I have contracted. I have eased. My dim dears at the breasts they could never suck. I have said, Sweets, if I sinned, if I seized your luck† (11-15). In these lines the speaker starts to blame herself; and then the tone becomes angry and helpless, â€Å"If I stole your births and your names, Your straight baby tears and your games, Your stilted or lovely loves, your tumults, your marriages, aches, and your deaths† (17-20). In these last few lines she again is listing out the things she will miss about her children and reminds the readers that she is full aware of the things and is regretful, but she still does the abortion. Along with the title of the poem there is another irony here, she says she stole their deaths by not letting them grow, she is saying she did not naturally let them die and had killed them herself before they were born. Our class had an intense conversation about the lines â€Å"If I poisoned the beginnings of your breaths, Believe that even in my deliberateness I was not deliberate .† (21-22), someone had suggested about how there is another paradox here. The tone has once again changed and she again tries to justify herself and her actions. She tries to explain that even though she had gone through with the procedure and succeeded in getting the abortion, it was not what she had  intended. Later on the narrator starts to sound very hypocritical, â€Å"Though why should I whine, Whines that the crime was other than mine? Since anyhow you are dead.† (23-25). Here the speaker is stressing over her own words, one moment her tone is sad and regretful and the next she is saying that there is no point as the child is already dead. The mother started the poem by accusing others of getting rid of their unborn, then she directly starts to talk to her dead children and now she is reasoning with herself about getting an abortion. She talks about a crime but does not call herself a criminal; somehow she tried to sound like the victim. She questioned if it was another’s fault. She tries hard not to take the blame on herself; in that particular line she is possibly implying that there may have been another person in th e scene that had made her do this, but none were mentioned, which indicates she is just looking for a way to share the blame with someone else, so that shame is not heavy on her. Once the mother’s intensions were established the tension between the mother and her unborn children and abortion was pretty luminous. She claims to have multiple abortions and explains her grief about giving up her children, yet she never apologized. She cannot get over the ghosts of all the children and is haunted by what could have happened, yet she is not apologetic, she never once mentioned that maybe she should have changed her mind and kept one child. Before she ends the poem she says, â€Å"Is faulty: oh, what shall I say, how is the truth to be said? You were born, you had body, you died. It is just that you never giggled or planned or cried.† (29-31). In those lines she tries to speak the truth and tries to accept that each child had a body and lived but it died. She even says it is faulty, but still does not blame herself for the abortions. She ends the poem by saying, â€Å"Believe me, I loved you all. Believe me, I knew you, though faintly, and I loved, I loved you All.† (32-34). It seems as though she tries to sound like a loving mother and tries to tell her unborn children that she loved them and vaguely knew them. Works Cited Brooks, Gwendolyn. The Mother. Poets.org. Academy of American Poets, n.d. Web. 15 Feb. 2014.

Feminist Critique of Classical Criminology

Feminist Critique of Classical Criminology The feminist critique of classical criminology has focused first on the marginalization of women in its studies and secondly on the contention that when women are studied, it is in a particularly limited and distorting fashion. Attempts to construct a distinctly feminist criminology have been made with use of methodologies including empiricism and standpoint theory. However, these theories have received criticism for their essentialist assumptions and universal claims. The feminist criminological theories detailed in this opinion have resulted from these criticisms and focus on postmodern ideas which consider more carefully how categories of identity are constituted and how power relates to knowledge. Particular attention will be given to the impact of Foucauldian notions of normalisation and disciplining power on the explanations of female conformity and deviance. Discourses on hegemonic masculinity which have grown from feminist epistemologies and methodologies will also be address ed. For every one hundred males convicted of serious offences there are only 18 females so convicted. Age and sex remain the best predictors for crime and delinquency better than class, race or employment status.(heidensohn, 1995, p143)  [1]. The discipline of criminology has been increasingly criticised by feminists and pro-feminist writers for its lack of gender analysis. As Ngaire Naffine has asserted, the costs to criminology of its failure to deal with feminist scholarship are perhaps more severe than they would be in any other discipline.(Naffine, p6)  [2]  The reason being that the most consistent and prominent fact about crime is the sex of the offender. As a rule, crime is something that men do, not women, so the denial of the gender question and the dismissal of feminists who wish to tease it out seems particularly perverse.(Naffine. 1996, p6)  [3]   The field of literature on criminology would suggest that it is a discipline of academic men studying criminal men and, at best, it would appear that women represent only a specialism, not the standard fare. .(Naffine. 1996, p1)  [4]  Similarly feminism as a substantial body of social, political and philosophical thought, does not feature prominently in conventional criminological writing. Feminism in its more ambitious and influential mode is not employed in the study of men, which is the central business of criminology. The message to the reader is thus that feminism is about women, while criminology is about men. (Naffine. 1996, p2)  [5]  Naffine has stated, the neglect of women in much mainstream criminology has, therefore, skewed criminological thinking in a quite particular way. It has stopped criminologists seeing the sex of their subjects, precisely because men have occupied and colonised all of the terrain. (Naffine. 1996, p8)  [6]   Traditional criminology which has sought to explain female criminality has been almost summarily rejected by feminists. The feminist critique of classical criminology was inaugurated by Carol Smart who rejected the biological positivist account of criminality propounded by Lombroso and Ferrero. Smart contended that the common stance, which unites classical theorists, is based upon a particular misconception of the innate character and nature of women, which is in turn founded upon a biological determinist position.(Smart. 1977, p27)  [7]  The emphasis on the determined nature of human behaviour, asserted Smart, is not peculiar to the discipline of criminology, or to the study of women, but is particularly pertinent to the study of female criminality because of the widely-held and popular belief in the non-cognitive, physiological basis of criminal actions by women.  [8]   Feminist criminologists sought to rectify the inadequacies of traditional criminology through new methodologies and research. Two of the earliest and most prominent schools of thought were feminist empiricism and standpoint feminism. Much of the early writing of feminists in criminology assumed the methods and assumptions of empiricist criminology. The concern of these early feminists was that women had been left out of the research of scientists and the result was a necessarily skewed and distorted science.  [9]  It accounted for men and explained their behaviour in a rigorous and scientific way, but it did not account for women, though it purported to do so. Feminist criminologists pointed out the blatant sexism of this double standard and argued that women and men should receive the same scientific treatment. Harding labels this method of thought feminist empiricism.  [10]  To feminist empiricists, scientific claims are thought to be realisable, but have not yet been realised in relation to women. Feminist empiricists alleged that classical criminologists had not considered the effects of their own biases and preconceptions on their work: on what they chose to do, how they did it, and what they made of it.  [11]  Thus feminist empiricists endeavour to develop a scientific understanding of women as the missing subjects of criminology, to document their lives both as offenders and as victims. They raise objections to the empirical claims made about women, when those claims are based on meagre evidence, with a good sprinkling of prejudice.  [12]   Naffine has suggested that the principle shortcoming of feminist empiricism is its tendency to leave the rest of the discipline in place, unanalysed and unchallenged.  [13]  The underlying assumption is that criminology is somehow competent and impartial when it is not dealing with women and so the gendered nature of criminal law and the criminal justice system remains unexamined. The empirical methods and the epistemological assumptions of traditional criminology are generally allowed to stand, as are its understandings of men. Feminist empiricism, therefore, fails to ask about the significance of institutions which have been organised around men.  [14]   Another feminist criminology which was constructed from the critique of classical theory was standpoint feminism. Standpoint feminism contended that criminologys continuing preoccupation with the viewpoint of men was a function of power. For standpoint feminists, the solution to criminologys ignorance of womens experiences was to turn to women themselves and seek their own accounts of the criminal experience. As Carol Smart has observed: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦the epistemological basis of this form of feminist knowledge is experienceà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦feminist experience is achieved through a struggle against oppression; it is, therefore, argued to be more complete and less distorted than the perspective of the ruling group of men. A feminist standpoint then is not just the experience of women, but of women reflexively engaged in struggle. In this process it is argued that a more accurate or fuller version of reality is achieved. This stance does not divide knowledge from values and politics but sees knowledge arising from engagement.  [15]   Thus the adoption of the standpoint of women is fundamentally a moral and political act of commitment to understanding the world from the perspective of the socially subjugated. It assumes that the identity of the subject matters; the epistemological site of the woman from below provides better insights into her condition. Thus, standpoint theorists attempt to close the gap between the knower and the known.  [16]   Pat Carlen has made use of standpoint theory in her research seeking to invest the female offender with the sort of rationality and purpose which had previously only been found in the male offender.  [17]  Carlen took an unusual step by literally making the criminal women who formed the subject of her study the authors of their own stories.  [18]  One of Carlens stated purposes was to make us realise that the criminality of women is serious and intentional.  [19]  Other standpoint theorists have suggested that the viewpoint of women provides a more secure grasp of certain aspects of reality, particularly the realities of disadvantages and political oppression than the standpoint of men. Standpoint theory can also be used effectively to highlight the injuries done to women as victims of crime. Standpoint feminism is by its nature democratic, its subversive potential does not depend on the academic credentials of the author.  [20]   Despite the contribution of standpoint theory to feminist criminology critics of this methodology have not failed to highlight its manifest inadequacies. These inadequacies include a lack of constituency and the tendency of standpoint feminism to universalise the category woman. These are the questions which standpoint feminism has no clear answer to. The notion of a womans standpoint, the suggestion that women as a category possess a particular and superior view of the world, is necessarily to select just one of the many viewing points from which women look on the world, and then to impose that one view on all.  [21]  These criticisms and others have been highlighted most eloquently by black and Third World feminists. Marcia Rice has taken issue with mainstream feminist criminology accusing it of being blind to its own essentialising tendencies. Given the history and theoretical objectives of feminist criminology, one might have assumed that the monolithic, unidimensional perspectives employed by traditional theorists would have been abandoned for a more dynamic approach.  [22]   However, Rice contends, almost without exception, feminist criminological research from 1960 to the present has focused on white female offenders. Sexist images of women have been challenged, but racist stereotypes have largely been ignored.  [23]  While there has been some acknowledgement that black women are not dealt with in the same way as white women, no research has been carried out which compares the sentences of black and white women.  [24]  This is an important point as a failure to consider the potentially different experiences of black women may invalidate the research findings. Race may be as important as gender, if not more so.  [25]   Rice has also criticised the perceived assumption in much feminist criminological writing that all women are equally disadvantaged. For example ODwyer, Wilson and Carlen write: Women in prison suffer all the same deprivation, indignities and degradations as male prisoners. Additionally they suffer other problems that are specific to them as imprisoned women.  [26]  Rice contends that this statement is inadequate as it stands. It fails to acknowledge the added problems of the isolation of and discrimination against black women. Bryan et al, for example, point to the fact that a higher percentage of black than white women in prison are on prescribed psychotropic drugs.  [27]  This requires explanation. Furthermore, many black women serving long sentences are not indigenous but are from West Africa and are serving sentences for drug offences. These groups of female prisoners in Britain are often awaiting deportation and have special needs; for example, contact is usually severed with their families and there are problems of communication.  [28]   Thus, asserts Rice, feminist criminologists have developed a theoretical approach which emphasises the significance of patriarchal oppression and sexist ideological practices. The main problem with this is that, in assuming a universal dimension of mens power, this approach has ignored the fact that race significantly affects black womens experiences in the home, in the labour market, and of the criminal justice system.  [29]   Criminologists have responded in many ways to the concerns of standpoint theorists. The responses focused on in this essay are those which pursue the intellectual problems generated by standpoint theory, and so consider more carefully how categories of identity are constituted and how power relates to knowledge. An examination of female criminality and unofficial deviance suggests that we need to move away from studying infractions and look at conformity instead, because the most striking thing about female criminal behaviour on the basis of all the evidence is how notably conformist to social mores women are.  [30]   Increasingly feminist criminologists have turned to postmodern (and poststructuralist) explanations of the way power and knowledge intersect to interrogate normalisation techniques and womens social and legal conformity. Many of these theories and methodologies have been based on the work of influential French philosopher Michel Foucault. Foucault has argued that disciplinary power acts on the individual body in order to render it more powerful, productive, useful and docile. Foucaults genealogies seek to give an account of how our ways of thinking and doing dominate and control us.  [31]  In modern society disciplinary power has spread through the production of certain forms of knowledge, such as the positivistic human sciences, and through the emergence of disciplinary techniques of surveillance, and examination which facilitates the process of obtaining knowledge about individuals. Disciplinary practices create the divisions healthy/ill, sane/mad which by virtue of their autho ritative statuses can be used as effective means of normalisation.  [32]  Disciplinary power secures its hold by created desires, attaching individuals and their behaviour to specific identities, and establishing norms against which individuals and their behaviours and bodies are judged and against which they police themselves.  [33]  Prevailing notions of identity and subjectivity are maintained and created not through violence or active coercion but by individual self-surveillance. Thus, There is no need for arms, physical violence, material constraints. Just a gaze. An inspecting gaze, a gaze which each individual under its weight will end up by interiorising to the point that he is his own overseer, each individual this exercising their surveillance over, and against himself  [34]   Forms of knowledge such as criminology, psychiatry and philanthropy are directly related to the exercise of power, while power itself creates new objects of knowledge and accumulates new bodies of information. Foucaults interpretation of disciplinary power has allowed feminist criminologists to exact a resounding critique on feminisms which have utilised structural accounts of patriarchal power. It has also prompted these criminologists to interrogate the diverse relationships that women occupy in relation to the social field consisting of multiple sites of power and resistance. Feminists have used Foucaults analytics of power to show how the various strategies of oppression around the female body from ideological representations of femininity to concrete procedures of confinement and bodily control are central to the maintenance of hierarchical social relations.  [35]  A pertinent example of feminist criminological research which has uncovered the use of panoptic techniques on women has been done by Pat Carlen who interviewed 15 Scottish sheriffs on their handling of women who were charged and imprisoned for criminal offences.  [36]  Carlen observed the considerable degree of embarrassment in the sheriffs feelings when a woman appeared in court as accused. They seemed to feel uneasy first because they knew that the women were being dealt with in a highly inappropriate penal tariff system to which they could not respond and second because of the womens role as mothers. The conflict was resolved by the sheriffs differentiating between good and bad m others. The sheriffs then redefine the prison to which the women are sent with all the appropriate paraphernalia of security and restraint, as a comfortable place, suitable for a spot of kindly paternal discipline (emphasis added).  [37]  Thus disciplinary power works to examine, diagnose and reform criminal women whilst the sheriff fulfills the role of normalising judge. Colin Sumner has provided an insightful exposition of Foucauldian normalisation in his work on gender and the censure of deviance.  [38]  Normalising power works through the norm, which is a mixture of legality and nature, prescription and constitution,  [39]  to produce a physics of a relational and multiple power, which has its maximum intensity not in the person of the King, but in the bodies that can be individualised by these relations.  [40]  It does not replace law, rather law is subsumed: the law operates more and more as a norm, the judicial institution is increasingly incorporated into a continuum or apparatuses whose functions are for the most part regulatory.  [41]  Discipline supports law, by its system of micro power and neutralises counter-power or resistance with the principle of mildness-production-profit rather than the levy of violence. Normalisation involves, then, a combination and generalisation of panoptic techniques subsuming other forms of pow er.  [42]  Examples of the practical implications for women who transgress the norms of sex-role expectations can be found in research which details the excessive harshness of the courts when dealing with women offenders.  [43]  Women defendants seem strange and less comprehensible than men: they offend both against societys behavioural rules about property, drinking, or violence and also against the more fundamental norms which govern sex-role behaviour. The differentiation between the sexes is scaled to protect girls from themselves, but it allows boys to be boys.  [44]   Thus through techniques of normalisation, a complex composition of hegemonic, and therefore social, censures emerged and, eventually, became the foundation of positivist and administrative forms of criminology.  [45]  Normalisation is presented as a strategy which produces a disciplined individual who is normally so unaware of the place of individualisation in the general strategies of domination that s/he operates within the illusion of a rationalistic voluntarism, while performing the economic, political, sexual and ideological roles required by sustained capital accumulation and bourgeois hegemony.  [46]   Despite its appeal to and appropriation by many feminists, Sumner has criticised Foucaults concept of normalisation for glossing over the role of the censure of women and femininity in the hegemonic ideologies constituting the political and economic role of the state.  [47]  Indeed, Sumner contends, the formation of the modern subject is a profoundly gendered process, as indeed is the formation of the modern state. Modern social censures and forms of social regulation are fundamentally gendered.  [48]  As Catherine MacKinnon has said: The state is male in a feminist senseà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦The liberal state coercively and authoritively constitutes the social order in the interests of men as a gender, through its legitimising norms, relation to society, and substantive policies.  [49]   Sumner criticises the lack of analysis of mens domination, patriarchy and hegemonic masculinist ideologies in Foucaults understanding of the concepts of right, justice, contract and agency.  [50]  The state form itself is profoundly masculine in that its fundamental organising concepts, institutions, procedures and strategies are historically imbued with, and are themselves descriptive of, an ideological notion of masculinity that is hegemonic; and that this hegemonic masculinity which contributes to the very form of state power, is not so much an effect of mens economic power as an overdetermined historical condensation of the economic, political and ideological power of ruling-class men.  [51]  Thus, it must be observed that the normalisation process concomitant with capitalist development contains with it the censure of the feminine and of deviant masculinities. This censure is part of the dominant ideological knowledge that the powerful try to invest in the practices and thus the bodies of subjects.  [52]   This notion of hegemonic masculinity which Sumner highlights in his critique of Foucault is a growing area of criminological research which draws on feminist theory and postmodern critique and it seeks to interrogate the gender question behind the criminality of men. The study of masculinities in a criminological context was inaugurated by Australian criminologist Bob Connell.  [53]   one very important new topic is already on the agenda: masculinityà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦..If emphasis on gender is a key aspect of feminist work, then the further study of masculinity must be vital. Without it there will be no progress.  [54]   Criminologists seeking to realign the gender question within criminology have sought an understanding of the crimes of men through reference to a rather different conceptualisation of masculinity; not just that the crimes of individual men might be explained through reference to their masculinity, but rather the idea that society itself is presently experiencing what has been termed a crisis of masculinity, a crisis made manifest in both the changing nature and extent of mens criminality.  [55]  Criminology for so long the target of feminist critique as the apotheosis of a masculinist discipline in terms of its epistemological assumptions, methodology and institutional practices, might at last appear to be addressing its very own sex question by seeking to engage with the sexed specificity of its object of study the fact that crime is, overwhelming, an activity engaged in by men.  [56]  The target of feminist critiques of the discipline which have emerged during the past 20 years has been with the nature of this recognition, the way in which the sex-specificity of crime has been conceptualised. How is it possible to recognise the diversity of mens lives whilst also recognising the existence of a culturally exalted form of masculinity? For Bob Connell the answer lies in the concept of hegemonic masculinity, which is always constructed in relation to various subordinated masculinities as well as in relation to women.  [57]  Central to hegemonic masculinity is the idea that a variety of masculinities can be ordered hierarchically. Gender relations, Connell argues, are constituted through three interrelated structures: labour, power and cathexis. What orderliness exists between them is not that of a system but, rather, a unity or historical composition. What is produced is a gender order, a historically constructed pattern of power relation between men and women and definitions of femininity and masculinity.  [58]  The politics of masculinity cannot be confined to the level of the personal. They are also embedded in the gender regime, part of the organisational sexualit y of institutions and society generally.  [59]  The construction of hegemonic masculinity as a unifying and all-encompassing ideology of the masculine envisages an image of mens beliefs and interests which is then seen as somehow intruding into the sacred realm of theoretical or institutional practices.  [60]   Criminology largely remains bifurcated around a man/woman axis in which general universal theories of crime causation have been taken to apply to men whilst the crimes of women are assessed from, or in relation to, the male norm.  [61]  Women have been seen as an aberration to this norm, to be as other, somehow less than fully male. However, crucially, one result of this simultaneous focus on a) the individual offender and b) the constitution of men as the norm has been that the sex-class of men have themselves been separated out into two groups: the offending criminal man and the non-offending man. It has been feminist work, especially in the area of mens violences, which has challenged the subsequent pathologising of the crimes of men that results from such a division, by seeking to explore instead what men may share, as opposed to the attributes of the individual criminal man.  [62]  Within mainstream criminology men considered to be deviant or pathological have been contr asted with the normal and the law-abiding. Whilst some criminologists may have sought to blur this distinction, it is a bifurcation between different types or categories of men which nonetheless remains the norm of criminological discourse. It has been in seeking to understand this issue of what men may share that, in the work of the second phase criminologists writing from feminist and pro-feminist perspectives, the concept of masculinity has been seen to have had a particular, and rather different, heuristic purchase.  [63]   Despite the potential of the theory of a hegemonic masculinity to be an explanatory variable of crimes by men, there are conceptual limits to its appeal. Collier asserts that the concept of hegemonic masculinity is of limited use in seeking to engage with such a complex male subject.  [64]  What we are dealing with is really a description or a list of masculine traits, each conjuring up powerful images about men and crime. In theory, each of the characteristics associated with hegemonic masculinity could apply equally to women as to men. Not all crime is to be explained by reference to hegemonic masculinity.  [65]  The concept of hegemonic masculinity has been used both as a primary and underlying cause of particular social effects and, simultaneously, as something which is seen as resulting from or which is accomplished through, recourse to crime.  [66]  Not only does this reflect a failure to resolve fully the tendency towards universalism, it can also be read as tautol ogical.  [67]  Thus, it is alleged, what is actually being discussed in accounts of hegemonic masculinity and crime is, in effect, a range of popular ideologies of what constitute ideal or actual characteristics of being a man. Hegemonic masculinity does not afford a handle on the conflicts generated between material and ideological networks of power. Nor, importantly, does it address the complexity and multi-layered nature of the social subject.  [68]   Thus it would appear that despite the breakthroughs promised by research into masculinities they have been seen to face some of the same problems associated with early feminism: totalising discourse and essentialist claims. An adequate theory of masculinity which does not resort to totalising discourse and essentialist claims would be a welcome addition to criminological discussions of gender. Feminist criminologists have long sought to highlight the manifest inadequacies of classical criminologys ignorance and distortion of women and crime. Smart has contended that the biological determinist position propounded by Lombroso and Ferrero has promulgated a misconception of the innate character and nature of women.  [69]  Attempts to rectify this distortion were made through the use of feminist empiricism and standpoint feminism which endeavoured to garner womens perspectives by turning to women themselves and seeking their own accounts of the criminal experience. However, these theories could not escape accusations of universalism and lack of constituency leveled by black feminists and postmodernists alike. Michel Foucaults theory of disciplinary power has been used by feminist criminologists to explain both the social conformity of women and the constitution of deviant womens identities in a social field consisting of multiple sites of power and knowledge. Feminist crimi nologists have used Foucaults analytics of power to show how the various strategies of oppression around the female body from ideological representations of femininity in classical criminology to concrete procedures of confinement and bodily control are central to the maintenance of hierarchical social relations. A relatively new development in criminological theory which concerns the issues of gender has been the idea of hegemonic masculinity. Connell has characterised hegemonic masculinity as a gender regime of sorts which is part of the organisational sexuality of institutions and society generally.  [70]  Hegemonic masculinity captures the ideology of masculinity pervading theoretical and established practices. The critique of hegemonic masculinity has focused on its tautological implications, and the contention that it is merely descriptive of masculine traits and cannot be used to engage with a complex male subject. Despite these criticisms, discourse on masculinity is a step forward for feminists who have long lobbied for adequate analysis of the role of gender in the criminological discipline.

Central Nervous System Essay -- Biology, Cells, Retinogenesis

SPECIFIC AIMS The neural progenitor cells give rise to myriad cell types of the central nervous system during development [1]. However, the molecular basis of generation of diverse cell types from a single pool of progenitors is largely unknown. As a part of the central nervous system, the neural retina is an ideal model system to comprehend this mechanism because its cellular diversity also results from multipotent progenitors, the retinal progenitor cells (RPCs) [2-4]. During retinogenesis, RPCs pass through different competent stages, each characterized largely by a unique set of transcription factors and defining RPCs’ ability to generate specific cell types during sequential cell divisions [5-7]. This study is an attempt to further our understanding of how transcription factors direct RPCs to differentiate into retinal ganglion cells (RGCs), the cell that connect retina to the brain. It is known that the basic helix-turn-helix transcription factor Math-5 renders RPCs the competence to adopt an RGC fate [8-10]. It essentially acts by turning on the expression of the POU domain factor Pou4f2 and the LIM homeobox factor Isl1, both critical for RGC differentiation and survival [11-12]. However, not all Math5-expressing progenitors become RGCs [13]. Nor can Pou4f2 and Isl1 be the only factors governing the terminal differentiation of RGCs as a large proportion of Math-5 controlled genes is not regulated by them [12]. What factors specify RGC fate? What are those non-Pou4f2/Isl1 factors that take part in RGC differentiation? If we are to set a milestone in medicine by using cell replacement therapy to treat neurodegenerative diseases, such fundamental questions like these must be answered. Available evidences suggest that the tra... ...OC factors in RGC development. In the developing liver, OC factors control TGF-ÃŽ ² signaling [18, 21], which is pro-apoptotic in RGCs [23]. Therefore, an Inquiry into the retinal onecut/TGF-ÃŽ ² connection and its downstream consequences may further our understanding of the regulation of RGC apoptosis, which is disturbed in several degenerative diseases. Using qPCR, Western blot, and reporter assay, I will first assess if retinal TGF-ÃŽ ² signaling is enhanced in the absence of OC factors. Then using a rescue experiment, I will see if increased TGF-ÃŽ ² signaling accounts for the retinal phenotype seen in onecut-null mice. Finally, using in situ hybridization, IF staining and reporter assay, I will look into the relationship of OC factors with Math5, Pouf42, and Isl1 to establish their tentative position in the hierarchy of transcription factors that control RGC development.

College Admissions Essay - Rewards of Understanding :: College Admissions Essays

College Admissions Essay - Rewards of Understanding As a high school freshman, I met and became friends with many new people. Among the most fascinating people was Lauren. I met Lauren in my lab class. She was outspoken and liberal. Her clothing revealed creativity; her big eyes, curiosity and strength. I was interested in learning more about Lauren, but felt shy about approaching her. My peers made fun of Lauren's manners and actions. They considered her too strange to know and shunned her. This prejudice made me realize I was not interested in knowing people who criticize based on observation rather than experience. Still, I said nothing in her defense. Recently, I traveled with my art class to Williamstown, Massachusetts. That was when I got to know and became friends with Lauren. She and I talked during the bus ride as she revealed to me unimaginable secrets. Lauren told me about her lifelong battle with Depression and Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). She also told me about her suicide attempts. She said, "When I was a kid, I was a dork and never good at anything social. Many times I would do or say the wrong thing. I felt rejected and lonely." I remembered those who mocked Lauren and felt angry at them. People's cruelty can be very painful even to those who appear strong and especially to those who live with emotional and social challenges. That is why it is crucial to understand someone before judgment and not act with brutality to those who are different. Lauren told me that art was her greatest passion. "Art is the only thing that has kept me sane because I can escape into it," she said.

Thinking, Values, And Beliefs :: essays research papers

Ideology is a way of thinking that reflect the social needs and political doctrines of an individual or group. There are many different people and different circumstances this results in a variety of different ways of thinking, values and beliefs. Our ideology grows with us from childhood. From the moment you are born the family influence begins to impact your thought process. A child is like a sponge that absorbs ideas and beliefs. Beliefs are taught to a child in subtle ways such as just listening to the parents and their opinions from everything including politics, social problems, moral issues and even opinions about how others behave. It is within the family unit that a person learns their moral values. It is from their parents that a child is taught right and wrong. Often this is through religious training. Religious beliefs or the lack of religious beliefs has a great influence on a person's beliefs and values. In the early years a child looks to their parents as the final authority on any subject. It's not uncommon to overhear a child explain something as being absolutely true because their mommy or daddy said so. As a child grow's older they see the world through outside influences such as the school system, the media, and their peers. School is often a child first opportunity to think for themselves. They experiment with ideas and values of their own. School teaches children to use a critical thought process. One way where this is done is if a child is given an opinion in a debate and they must find reasons to defend a certain viewpoint. They are exposed to a wide variety of viewpoint and opinions. Another source of influence on values and beliefs is the media. Free speech guarantees the rights of anyone to express their opinions. Children begin to form new beliefs and ideas of their own, the family influence is still there, but just not as strong. Also, peers become a major influence on a young person's thinking. To express their newfound values a child will often go through a stage of rebellion where they reject a lot of their parent's values. This doesn't mean that they have taken on a whole new belief system. It just means they are expanding the values, thinking, and belief system from the home with new ideas and thoughts. The country where you are raised is one of the major influences on a person's values and thinking process.

Lifecycle of a Plastic Product Essay

Our life has been full with the uses of plastic in our daily life, in food and beverages to the appliances surrounding our daily life. Plastic was made from simple chains of molecules that are linked together called as Polymers. Thus, make many types of plastics are named starting with ‘Poly’ such Polyethylene, polystyrene and polypropylene. Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) – More commonly known as rubbish or garbage such as packaging products, grass clippings, furniture, clothing, bottles, food scraps, newspapers, household appliances, paint, these daily items we use then throw away, and battery. It comes from our homes, schools, hospitals, and businesses [2]. Each year, a report on the EPA Advanced Certificate Management Amendment: Facts and Figures 2013, formerly known as Municipal Solid Waste in the United States: Facts and Figures. It contains information on municipal solid waste generation, recycling, and disposal. MSW trace after 30 years, source limit reports (waste prevention) MSW and MSW tipping landfill fees for historical information, generation and demolition Additional information on the information, which has been extended to include outside the scope. The new name emphasizes the importance of sustainable content management (CM). CM refers to the use and recycling of materials in a more productive and durable manner throughout their entire lifecycle. SMM practices to conserve resources reduce waste, slow climate change, the materials we use to reduce their impact on the environment. In 2013, nearly 254 million tons of garbage, recycled and converted to US fertilizer products of 87 million tons, equivalent to 34.3 percent recycling rate was generated. On average, we recycled and 40: 40 pounds per person per day. Even from that, plastic is a very crucial part of our everyday lives, as it been used and basically can be found everywhere. Some examples of usage of plastics are in electronics and surgical instrument as plastic is lightweight, cheap and easy to build. Other than that, plastic is very useful when dealing with durability along with times, it is because plastics don’t easily be damaged by surrounding, unlike iron that can rust over time if in contact with water. Plastic also has a great impact on our today telecommunication, as the world evolves with the technology, a higher demand for internet is needed and fiber optics cable for faster communication with others is needed. The main substances used to produce fiber optic is plastic, in vehicles plastic parts is also one of the major parts needed as it used because it optimizes the power usage and makes them more efficient. The parts that used plastic in a vehicle are including seats, polycarbonate windows and interior panel. Basically, plastic has its own advantages and disadvantages that made it impossible to be ban completely as its usage in every part of daily lives. Even though, it has an important role as one of the vital resources in domestic and also industrial, because of plastics characteristics that are durable, water-resistant, lightweight and cheaper. The usage of plastic needs to supervise and handled appropriately for disposal. Not properly disposing of plastic could lead to plastic pollution due to the basic property of plastic that made it so durable and take thousands of years to decomposed [1]. The overuse of plastic and plastic pollution could give a number of effects on the environment and ecosystem. The effect to the environment is the landfills of plastic wastage due to overuse of plastic because of it cheaper and easier to be obtained. Other than that, an open burning with plastic will release dangerous chemical gasses to the air and could lead to impotence, cancer, asthma and etc. other than that, an authorized disposal of plastics to the sea or river could harm the animals live inside it. From a research, the turtles mostly die because of the plastics that they consume because turtles were mistaken plastics as jellyfish. Besides that, another effect to the animals is the entanglement of plastics to the body of turtles, dolphin and etc. that could affect the animal’s growth. There are several of ways that human can contribute to ensuring a smart usage of plastic to avoid plastic pollution. The easier ways to contribute is by shop friendly when shopping at the market to buy the needs for home, by having oneself shopping bag the usage of plastics can be reduced. Secondly, is to bring your own food container and drink bottle to reduce the usage of plastics from the packaging of your food and plastic bottle that cannot be reusable. Nonetheless, recycling is one of the vital ways that can help in reducing the usage of plastics because by recycling the plastics can be disposed of appropriately.