Descriptive Essay About Mothers Cookies Essay Example for Free

Descriptive Essay About Mothers Cookies Essay Many students enter college expecting good times, knowledge, friendships, and a new sense of direction. When I first got to William Penn I didn’t believe I would gain any of that. As time has passed I realized that WPU does have a lot to offer but everything takes patients. I also had to realize that everything wasn’t going to come easy either. I soon found out that college comes with challenges and struggles because of the great demands and expectations that comes with success. The demands of doing many different things with very little time can become overwhelming. But I believe I’m starting to get the hang of it. There are a limited number of students on the campus so it makes it easier to focus in class that’s something I really like. Putting in long hours and worrying about class does bring extra stress but I’m learning to balance it all out. Coming to WPU has also taught me to have an open ming that I can’t just do the tihngs that I know how to do. I have to try new things that im unconfortable doing. I believe attending this university will open many doors for me. It will also help me mature and become a better student . WPU wiil also help me build my career and start my life on the right path. I chose to come to William Penn becaus I knew that a school far away would give me a better chance to focus on school without too many distractions. Another reason I chose William Penn is because Im very deticated to basketball and coach Henry offered me scholarship money to give me an oppurtunity to play. I also did my research and I noticed that the basketball team had a great season and great program. So I figured it was an honor that William Penn wanted me. I also have lived in Louisiana my whole life so i was really read for the college experience and something different other than Louisiana. So far Im feeling that William Penn was the right choice for me. I needed a new start away from all my problems back home. I was really making bad choices that was starting to lead my life in a direction that i was not prepared for. Ofcourse all my problems are not going to just go away but being at William Penn is giving me an oppurtunity to live my dreams and revatuate myself as a person. Then I will be able to deal with my issues back home as a different person with a better mind set. So I definately dont regret coming to this school because it is keeping me grounded and building character. Read Also:Â  Descriptive Essay Topic Ideas

Just say Know! Essay Example for Free

Just say Know! Essay Intelligent consideration of the war on drugs may lead one to believe that it is inexplicable, irrational and unsustainable. It is none of these. It is a rational subterfuge perpetrated for a particular purpose, namely, the profits resulting from the importation and distribution of huge quantities of heroin and cocaine, and those who are behind the war on drugs are the same as those who are responsible for the widespread use of these addictive and life-destroying drugs. Unless they are stopped the war on drugs and all its attendant horrors will continue to ruin America. Just one CIA drug ring, that of Rafael Caro Quintero and Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo based in Guadalajara, Mexico was smuggling four tons A MONTH into the U. S. during the same period! Other operations including Manuel Noriega (Panama), John Hull (Costa Rica), Felix Rodriguez (El Salvador), Juan Ramon Matta Ballesteros (Honduras) and elements of the Guatemalan and Honduran military were dealing close to two hundred tons a year or close to 70% of total U. S. consumption at the same time! All of them have been connected to CIA by documentation and testimony which already exists! This coke was smoked, snorted and injected by people of every race and in every state; in the cities and on the farms. — http://www. radio4all. org/crackcia/sjmn. html The CIA smuggling cocaine? U. S. covert action organizations responsible for flooding the U. S. with addictive drugs? Farfetched? Far from it — the evidence is now overwhelming. Put simply, in order to keep making enormous profits, those responsible for the distribution of addictive drugs in the U. S. (and it is not only the CIA) must keep the use of these drugs illegal. Were drug use legalized their profits would disappear overnight. So how to keep drugs illegal? Simply buy up enough legislators to block any steps toward revealing the facts of the matter or toward reversal of the present state of prohibition. The profits of the drug lords, and the corruption of the legislators, makes this possible. So drug use is demonized, those who use drugs are turned into criminals, and to make it appear that the authorities are sincere in their attempts to combat the drug problem hundreds of thousands of drug users are arrested and thrown into jail for up to forty years. Those responsible for this, and for the addiction of millions of Americans and others for the sake of profit, can only be described as evil. Not only are users of the life-destroying drugs heroin and cocaine caught up in this pogrom but also users of non-addictive life-enhancing drugs such as LSD, THC (marijuana), psilocybin (mushrooms) and MDMA (ecstasy). The users of such substances are often some of the kindest and most non-violent people youll ever meet (Ive met plenty of them), but for the sake of perpetuating the profits of the drug lords (both American and foreign) many of them have had their lives ruined and most of the rest live in fear of persecution. Its about time that Americans woke up to the fact that it is the prohibition of drugs which is making possible these profits, is corrupting their government and which is likely (if not corrected) to be the ruin of their country. The information regarding who is profiting from the illegal status of drug usage is available now, and no-one will be able to say, as the good Germans of the Nazi era said, we didnt know. Just say Know! On 1997-05-22 the late Terence McKenna said, on the Art Bell radio talk show, in response to a callers question as to why psychoactive drugs are illegal: Let me say this I mean, Im a bit of a pessimist on this subject. Because I take psychedelics so seriously, I cant imagine them ever being really legal unless theres a total social transformation because my analysis of it is, the reason everybody from a Marxist state to a Christian oligarchy to a high-tech industrial democracy can get together and agree that psychedelics are a terrible terrible thing is because the social effects of psychedelics being taken by large numbers of people is a kind of deconditioning from the cultural myths, whatever they are. Its no knock on any given society, its just that if people start taking psychedelics, they start questioning what theyve been told about reality. And culture is in the business of keeping you inside a set of predetermined answers to those questions. Although McKenna had some interesting to say about drug usage (and called for the legalization of all drugs), here he missed the main point entirely. It is true that psychedelics are de-conditioning agents, and that they lead to questioning of mainstream premises defining reality (and perhaps even contribute to the dreaded questioning of authority — though no drugs are needed for this), but this is not the fundamental reason that the Drug War continues. The fundamental reason is money. As stated above, it is the enormity of the profits from the international illicit drug trade that requires drugs to remain prohibited. Nothing much can be done to end the Drug War until this fact is recognized (recognition will come more quickly to those who read James Mills book, The Underground Empire). To assert, as McKenna did, that prohibition continues because legislators are afraid of youth questioning authority, suggests that the solution is to reassure and re-educate those legislators so that they see the light. Such a re-education is certainly desirable, but it will do very little to bring an end to the Drug War as long as the fundamental economic basis for prohibition is not recognized and acknowledged. In the meantime the insanity continues †¢ The late Peter McWilliams wrote: Prisons are filled to capacity and beyond. In most areas an early-release program has been instituted which, of course, fails to differentiate between prisoners whose crimes had innocent victims [e. g. theft, assault and rape] and prisoners whose crimes did not [e. g. marijuana smokers]. This puts truly dangerous criminals out on the street sooner, giving them extra months, and in some cases years, to rape, rob and plunder. Due to overcrowding caused by the War on Drugs, prisons (not enjoyable places under the best of conditions) have become intolerable. Some of them violate the constitutional guarantee against cruel and unusual punishment. With the overcrowding, any hope of rehabilitation, job placement, counseling, therapy, or achieving any other high-minded goals is completely derailed. — Aint Nobodys Business If You Do, p. 242. And the carnage continues †¢ P. B. Floyd: Weighing The Harms In 1980, Californias prisons held 23,511 inmates or 1 in 1006 residents. By 1994, about 125,000 were incarcerated, or 1 in 256. By the year 2000, the California Department of Corrections projects that 1 in 146 people in California will be in prison. Drug offenses were responsible for 25 percent of the US prison population in 1995, up from only 8 percent in 1980. About 220,000 drug prisoners were held in state prisons in 1995, up 1070 percent from 1980. Over 70 percent of the arrests have been for possession of drugs, not sale or manufacture. Over 200,000 prisoners of the Drug War in the State of California alone — victims of a vicious and depraved pogrom occurring right under the noses of the citizens, most of whom are willing to look the other way, like the good Germans of the 1930s. As regards state persecution of minorities there is no difference between sending a person to prison for smoking pot and sending a person to a labor camp for being a member of a group which lights candles in memory of deceased relatives on Friday evenings. In both cases the imprisonment is done by Nazis or those with the mentality of Nazis. And if you think this comparison of drug warriors to Nazis is far-fetched, just take a look at the book mentioned above, R. L. Millers Drug Warriors and Their Prey: From Police Power to Police State. If you read this book you wont be able to say to your children, I didnt know what was happening. Jonathan Blumen: What I Learned From Auschwitz The article by P. B. Floyd discusses the following harms resulting from the war on drugs: o Incarceration Boom and Lives wasted in prison o Addicts cant get effective treatment o Increased AIDS Cases o Civil Liberties Lost o Increased street and organized crime o Waste of billions o Third world dictators supported Yet this War has been going on for twenty years and is still being promoted by the U. S. and other cryptofascist governments despite the massive evidence of its harm. What is really going on that this can happen? †¢ U. S. Prison Population Sets New Record in 1996 [Page removed from Yahoo and also from the Wayback Machine. ] The U. S. prison population increased by about 55,900 inmates last year, reaching a record 1,182,000 at the end of 1996 and posing new problems with overcrowding, the Justice Department reported Sunday. The report attributed the increase in the state prison population over the decade to more black drug offenders and more white violent offenders behind bars. Other factors included a sharp increase in the number of people imprisoned for drug offenses. — Reuters, 1997-06-23 †¢ U. S. Prison Population Slowed in 96 [Page removed by the L. A. Times] Counting both prison and jail inmates, more than 1. 6 million adults were behind bars as of last June 30, an incarceration rate of 615 inmates for every 100,000 U. S. residents. That rate of imprisonment put the nation second only to Russia, which had a rate of 690 inmates per 100,000 residents in 1995, the last available figure. The two countries imprison a far higher proportion of their citizens than any other country in the world. — Los Angeles Times, 1997-06-23 †¢ STATE PRISONS EXPECTED TO GROW 37% BY 2003 Californias already crowded prisons are projected to add 57,733 inmates by 2003, a 37 percent increase, state officials said Wednesday. The Department of Corrections said the states adult prisons now house 155,687 prisoners, compared with 66,965 in 1987. Officials predict that the population will reach 202,855 in 2002 and 213,420 the next year. — Orange County Register, 1997-12-11, page 4.

Analysis of the 8th Amendment

Analysis of the 8th Amendment 8th Amendment Introduction The 8th Amendment (Amendment VIII) to the United States Constitution can be legally defined as the section of the United Sates Bill of Rights that which forbids the federal government from imposing excessive fines, neither inflicting cruel and unusual punishments nor imposing excessive bail. The 8th amendment was approved to be part of the United States Constitution in the year 1791.This amendment was almost similar to a stipulation made in the English Bill of Rights of 1689 where the government made a declaration to the point that they had to operate as their ancestors had by not demanding for excessive bail neither imposing excessive fines nor inflicting cruel or unusual punishments. In the case of England the provision was mainly driven by the punishment involving Titus Oates. During the reign of King James II in the 1680s Titus Oates worked as a fixture in the London pillory circuit. Oates was involved many ordinary penalties that had been collectively imposed forced on him in a manner that was both excessive and unparalleled. Oates had lied under oath which led to many innocent people being placed under the death sentence. Parliament approved the declaration against â€Å"cruel and unusual punishments â€Å"for England in the year 1689. The declaration was explained by the parliament that it was supposed to prevent punishments such as the one inflicted on Titus Oates by the Kings Bench. In December 1689 the then parliament endorsed the provision to be passed into law. The first state to adopt a stand similar to that of England on the issues was the state of Virginia. In the year 1776 the Virginia declaration of rights incorporated the English bill of rights and then went on a step further to recommend in the year 1788 that the above provision be included in the united states constitution as at the Virginia convention that meant to approve the U.S constitution. It was some Virginia states men such as Patrick Henry and George Mason that first endorsed that congress be limited by use of the restriction as in the English bill of rights. This was based on the fears that if that did not happen the congress could inflict some punishments that were both unusual and severe on criminals. The two Virginians also stressed the need for the Congress to do away with the line in the English bill of rights that seemed to admit of tortures and barbarous punishment inflicted on its people in the past. And also recommended congress to start the enactment of civil law in favor of the more practiced common law. In the end Mason and Henry were successful in their quest and then the 8th amendment was adopted by the United States. In the year 1789 James Madison changed the words ought in the English bill of rights to† shall then proposed it to the congress for amendment. Cruel and unusual punishments The eighth amendment according to the Supreme Court prohibited entirely the infliction of some punishments and at the same time forbid some other punishments which when compared to the crime for which they were given for were seen to be excessive or those which were seen to be excessive when the competence of the perpetrator was put into light. This was seen as necessary because in the earlier years some of the judgments handed down to the people were in excess considering the fact that the perpetrators were either incompetent to commit such crimes or the crimes committed were minor. In the year 1962 the supreme courts ruled that the cruel and unusual punishments act applied to all the states of the United States through the fourteenth amendment. This followed the case involving Robinson vs. California, 370 U.S. 660 in the year 1960. Before the Robinson case the eighth amendment had only earlier been applied in cases against the federal government. In the case involving Furman vs. Ge orgia, 408 U.S. 238 of the year 1962 the four principles that would determine whether a punishment passed onto a perpetrator was â€Å"cruel and unusual† were written by Justice Brennan. These included statements that for the punishment handed down judging by how severe it is degrade human dignity under conditions as in the case of torture, it also that any unusual and cruel punishment was one which was totally and clearly rejected by the whole society, one which was seen to be inflicted in a manner that was seen to be wholly arbitrary or one that was patently unnecessary. Brennan went on to write that it was an expectation that no American state would pass a law that would seem to undermine any of the four principals, such that all decisions made in court involving the eighth amendment would consider all the these principles. The punishments for which according to the eighth amend were forbidden regardless of the crime committed would include any form of disemboweling, public dissecting, drawing and quartering or burning alive. This in relation to the four Brennan principles where punishments that were totally rejected throughout the society. In the cases of Atkins vs. Virginia 536 U.S. 304 of 2002 the supreme court declared executing mentally handicapped people fell in the forbidden punishments and also in the case of Roper vs. Simmons 543 U.S. 551 of 2005 where the court ruled that executing people under18 years was a violation of the eighth amendment regardless of the crime committed by the perpetrator. Punishments that were forbidden for certain crimes included cases in which the court had to overturn punishments such as the cadena temporal which mandated that â€Å"hard and painful labor† shackling are done away with while in the process of incarceration or when faced with civil disabilities that were permanent. The case mentioned above took place in 1910 and was often seen as a means of establishing some proportionality when applying the eighth amendment. In some other cases it was ruled that punishing a natural-born American citizen for any crime by taking away his citizenship was perceived to be unconstitutional and primitive as it involved completely damaging the persons status in the society. In a case involving Coker vs. Virginia 433 U.S. 584 of 1977 the court at the time clearly stated that the imposition of a death penalty or rape was totally unconstitutional and that applied to any other case where death did not occur. It went ahead to clarify that rape crimes by d efinition do not include either death or even any serious body harm to the other person. Excessive fines For many years the United States Supreme Court never had much to say when the subject of excessive fines was mentioned. In one early case the Supreme Court had no power to revise any judgments passed by a lower court as regards the subject of heavy fines being imposed on someone. In later years the need to need to review the amount of fines levied on a person because it always led to the imprisonment just because the person was unable to raise the amount imposed on him/her by the court. In a step meant to ensure equal citizen protection the court found a way to put to meaning the words â€Å"excessive fines† when compared to the person for whom the judgment is meant to affect. But the court also ruled out applying the above clause could not be applied to cases involving private cases where the government had not been involved in the prosecution nor was it to receive any share of any of the awarded damages. This decision was based on the intention for which the excessive fines clause was meant for. The court clearly stated that at the time when the eighth amendment was adopted into the united states constitution the word ‘fine was taken to refer to any payment that would have to be made to sovereign entity for an offence committed. THE court left open the decision as to whether the clause could be applied to qui tam actions or cases involving civil penalties but at the same time it concluded that the excessive fines clause was initially intended to affect the fines that were only imposed by one payable to the government. In cases involving any civil forfeiture the excessive fines clause could be applied. The meaning of the clause as it regards to the quantum punishment of any particular offences when it is independent of the ability of the offender to pay the fine imposed on him still awaits the result of legal proceedings. Excessive bail In England it was the duty of the sheriffs to decide whether or not a person deserved to be granted bail. Due to the continual abuse of power by the sheriffs the government back then released a statute that clearly categorized the bailable and the non-bailable offences. But these statutes could be subverted according to the decision of the Kings judges. According to the law then a person could be held without bail depending on the commands of the sovereign authority. It was often argued that the King did not have the authority to make such decisions and this led to the infringement of human rights when people were intentionally kept in prison despite having committed bailable offences. This and many more ambiguities were eventually put to an end by the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679. After the Habeas Act was passed judges were faced with the decision to set the bail amounts but they often posed some amounts that were impracticable. It was until the year 1689 that the English bill of right s forbids the demand of excessive rights but a further amendment to distinguish between bailable and non bailable offences was needed. Bail is said to be excessive and in violation of the Eighth amendment if the value to which it is set is higher when compared to the reasonably calculated value that is aimed at ensuring the governments asserted interest. The aim of setting bail is said to be as a guarantee that the person who is accused is going to present himself for trial and accept the sentence that is handed down to him and no more. In order for a person to be able to challenge the amount of bail imposed on him he must move for a reduction. If the reduction is denied then the court of appeals followed by the Supreme Court can overrule the decision. The eight amendment could not be applied to post convicted release cases that await appeal but it is normal practice to grant leases in such cases. Bail is seen to uphold the presumption of innocence before a person is tried acquired only after centuries of struggle. The excessive bail clause adopted by the United States constitution from the English bill of rights had slight changes made on it. In the England act there was no provision that stated that one had the right to bail at all times but only provided that the bail amount imposed on a person was not to be excessive in the cases that bail could be granted. The governments argued that the amount of bail imposed was not to be excess when compared to the weight of the crime committed by the person. Conclusion The eighth amendment to the United States Constitution was a good step in defining various issues that surrounded judgments passed onto persons since time in memorial. It is aimed at eliminating the infringement of the basic human rights as it regulated the amount of punishment that one could be given based on the offence. In the years before the amendment could be done peoples rights were sometimes stepped on as some of the judgments passed amounted to torture on the person. This is in a way seems to bring fairness in the judicial System of the United States. This amendment protected people from situations where the amount of bails, fines imposed on the person could not match the perception of the crime committed. The American constitution is supposed to ensure a stable and responsible government. It is generally supposed to protect the rights of the American citizens even against infringement by the government itself. this is exactly what the eighth amendment went on to do, making every citizen equal before the law and making sure every citizen gets a fair judgment based on the crime committed, whether it regards the bail set or the amount of fine one is asked to produce. References Bamonte, T. J. (1981) Journal of Law and Criminology: Eighth Amendment- A significant limit on federal court activism in ameliorating state. USA: Northwestern University School of Law. Eighth Amendment. (2009, June). Eighth Amendment. Retrieved October 6, 2009, from http://www.lectlaw.com/def/e082.htm Find Law. (2009, June). U.S Constitution Eighth Amendment. Retrieved October 6, 2009, from http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment08/ Haney, C. (1997). Psychology and the limits to prison pain: Confronting the coming crisis in Eighth Amendment. New York: American Psychological Association. Harr, J. S. (2008). Constitutional Law and the Criminal Justice System. USA: American Press Association Introduction the Eighth Amendment (2009, July). AN OVERVIEW OF CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCILES RELEVANT TO CAPITAL CASES. Retrieved October5, 2009, http://www.capdefnet.org/hat/contents/intro_to_8th/3_intro_to_8th.htm Welzmuller, M. (2000). The death penalty – legal cruelty. USA:

Tom Clancys Op Center :: essays research papers

Tom Clancy’s Op-Center Divide and Conquer The nation is about to be in another Middle East war, but they don’t know it yet, even the president doesn’t know it. Will Paul Hood inform the president with the correct information in time? Will war break out in Azerbaijan? In this political thriller you really don’t know what is going on right up until the end.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Paul Hood is the main character; he is the head of Op-Center, the United States division that deals with information sharing with Allis countries to stop terrorism. He is going through a divorce, and his daughter was just held hostage in an U.S. embassy (I think this happened in the book before the one I read). He had resigned from Op-Center because of all the things happening in his life, but he went back because he couldn’t live without it. Paul Hood would be classified as a workaholic.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Chief of Staff (Red Gable), the Vice President (Charles Cotten) and Secretary of the State (Jack Fenewick), are all in on the conspiracy to start a war in order to secure the U.S. oil supply for the next millennium. The conspiracy will also put Charles Cotten into the presidency, with Michael Lawerence (current president) being forced out of office.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The conspiracy that the â€Å"Eye’s Only Group† (Gable, Cotten and Fenewick) has planned is that of terrorism and treason. The plan is the terrorist known as the Harpooner will blow up an oilrig in Azerbaijan, making them think that the Iranians it. The Iranians will claim they didn’t, but everybody will think they are lying, because the dead bodies found will be that of Iranians, and they will be wearing the uniform of the elite Iranian military force. Tensions will grow, war will break out. The whole time the president will be fed mis-information that he will talk internationally with this mis-information, then have to eat his words, when everybody says â€Å"What!? We didn’t know that†. The public will think the president has lost his sanity, and he will be forced to resign.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Paul Hood has to dig deep to find the connection between the â€Å"Eye’s Only Group† and Azerbaijan, and get the information to the president before he decides to go to war.

reactors :: essays research papers

Heat is produced in a nuclear reactor when neutrons strike Uranium atoms causing them to fission in a continuous chain reaction. Control elements, which are made of materials that absorb neutrons, are placed among the fuel assemblies. When the control elements, or control rods as they are often called, are pulled out of the core, more neutrons are available and the chain reaction speeds up, producing more heat. When they are inserted into the core, more neutrons are absorbed, and the chain reaction slows or stops, reducing the heat. Reactors can be used for research or for power production. A research reactor is designed to produce various beams of radiation for experimental application; the heat produced is a waste product and is dissipated as efficiently as possible. In a power reactor the heat produced is of primary importance for use in driving conventional heat engines; the beams of radiation are controlled by shielding. Research and test reactors -- also called â€Å"non-power† reactors -- are nuclear reactors primarily used to conduct research, development and education. These reactors contribute to almost every field of science including physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, geology, archeology, and environmental sciences. A breeder reactor is defined as a reactor that both consumes and produces fissionable fuel. Generally breeder reactors produce more fuel than they consume. Breeding is the process by which new fissionable material is created by capturing neutrons from fissions in fertile materials.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Fast breeder reactors are reactors where the fission reaction is sustained by fast neutrons. Fast breeder reactors do not require a moderator, allowing for a variety of working fluids. Two types of fast breeder reactors are Gas-Cooled Fast Breeder Reactors (GCBRs), often cooled by pressurized helium, and Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactors (LMFBRs), which are cooled by molten sodium. The reactor core, at its center, has concentrations of ~20% Pu-239 and 80%. Surrounding fuel rods are 100%. The reactor has a high concentration of fissile material at its core, allowing a chain reaction to be sustained even with fast neutrons, despite the lower probability of fast neutrons causing fissions than slow neutrons. A consequence of operating with fast-moving neutrons (hence the common name Fast Breeder Reactors, or FBR) is that there is a higher chance of transmuting U-238(uranium- 238) to Pu-239(Plutonium-239). After a year's worth of operation, the center rods will have concentration of 15% Pu-239 and 85% U-238, with the surrounding material having 95% U-238 and 5% Pu-239.

Vivid Use of Imagery in My Father’s Garden, by David Wagoner Essay

In David Wagoner’s poem, â€Å"My Father’s Garden†, the speaker describes his father’s job as a fruitful gardener that his father find very productive but does not finally yield anything of value. Through the use of vivid imagery, we are presented with two contrasting outlooks on life. In four stanzas, Wagoner’s use of imagery and metaphors shows us what he thinks of his father’s job, his education and subsequently, the choices his father has made throughout his life. We are first presented with image of an open hearth which directly sets the tone for the first stanza. The speaker description of his father as a knight in a furnace with where â€Å"white hot steel† (ln, 1) that is pierced by â€Å"his lance† (ln, 2) has a negative connotation. With the use of the words, â€Å"blazing† and â€Å"molten† (ln, 4), the setting is hell-like and ultimately gives us an insight into the speaker’s impression of his father. However, in the last sentence, the scene drastically changes from a mercilessâ€Å"open hearth† to a calm a scrapyard that is his father’s â€Å"kind of garden† (ln, 6). In the secon...

A Sociological Review of Marketing Molly and Melville: Dating in a Post-modern, Consumer Society

From the late 1980s, more and more commodities were being marketed with increasingly number of customers, women and men. This could be a new phenomenon that people wanted to make they look better to catch the fast-developing world and consumer society. Thousands of heterosexuals dating advertisements, like from magazines and newspapers, so they need improve their qualifications that will be described in the advertisements to attract the isomerism. In this point, men and women got different ways to presenting themselves like Jagger said in her article: â€Å"†¦ In describing the self, women were more likely to stress their appearance, whereas men were more likely to emphasise their finical and educational status and occupation, consistent with traditional ‘sex-role' expectations. † (Jagger 2001) It is true that the way people developing new relationships were depending on selective consumption by others, so dating advertisements are chances for people can represent themselves. Therefore the words ‘masculinity' and ‘femininity' became very important, because the changing meanings of them were part of the consumer society and new definition of self-identity. Men and women are more equally likely to market their bodies when advertising the self and seemed both sex had paid more attention to lifestyle but not work-place or domestic stuff. Like Jagger argued in her article, that major social transformations nearly has been done during the 20-century, along with the rise of media and advertising, the foundation of consumer culture has been established. Based on this new social culture, identities of individual has been described by the way of leisure and consumption much more than work and production, and the changed meaning of self-worth which is a very important factor while advertising a unitary self. Femininity and Masculinity in a Post-modern Society It has been argued in Jagger's article that ‘femininity' and ‘masculinity' were to describer women and men typically since long time ago. Women used to be identified as emotional, caring, domestically, and always should make themselves look beautiful as objectives in men's gaze. These analyses are consistent to the self-identity of women in advertising, majority of the women are more likely to stress their physical attractiveness but not something else. Yet this view of subordinate femininity was re-appraised in the 1980s as stereotyped social identity, people think that consumer culture provided women much more important resources of being an individual new feminine self than before. That means woman should have more opportunity to work, live, or even play with their personal identity and take pleasure of making different roles and masks, to do whatever they wanted equitable. As Jagger pointed out, however, Being a ‘professional', ‘independent', ‘career' woman have been identified. In sharp contrast to the old terrain of domestic femininity, these ‘new women', are held to do things for their own satisfaction and gratification, not merely to attract and keep a man. † (Jagger 2001) In other side, the contemporary debate on men and masculinity has been suggested that it is no longer a simple unitary male identity. Traditionally, men have been identified as ‘strong', ‘brave', ‘responsible', and usually deal with some hard and dangerous social work. This view of identity determined that men have to be cool and cold. Thus caused this kind of characters become very popular in women. For example, ROBOCOP, ROCKY and RAMBO, these were some images of ‘hard-man'; even all of them are violent. Since 1990s, however, this identify of men has been challenged by the value of ‘new man', who is warmer, softer, and more emotional. They being required not only be a worker or even a successful businessman, but also should take at least half of the domestic responsibility as a good father and a good husband. Moreover, muscles now understood as sexy sign of male but not the symbol of working class and rough person. More and more men with masculinity wanted to be enjoyed by female viewer as objectives in the new order of the consumer society. â€Å"It is clamed, therefore, men have become embodied subject, enjoying the same kind of attention that in the past was the preserve of women. † (Jagger 2001) Although the fast-developing consumer society provided both men and women resources of self-identity, required them to change the gender stereotypes, there are still a lot of problems. Some researchers consider that the power of traditional culture still strong or even more signifies. Both men and women are influenced by this cultural ideal. In one hand, it has been argued that a more limited number of the female advertisers still emphasise their physical attractiveness, their caring and ability to listen when representing themselves. A ‘professional', ‘successful' woman always was proved negative and ‘masculine'. Many solutions have been used for fix the problem. Some women construct themselves as mixed subjects that means they can be a good housewives and holding a demanding job at the same time. Also some female advertisers construct themselves in characters that borrowed from media, or describe the appearance of their body directly. It is a truth that many women have been advised by the media for how to be a ‘new femininity' and what that kind of women might look like, identified as subject of gaze. However, these ‘new femininities' did not walk too far from the old notion. They continue to represent themselves in a relatively limited number of images of female selfhood, particularly with regard to their bodies. In the other hand, it seems that masculinity takes many forms to the extent that men produced more versions of the self than women did. Some of them represent themselves as hard working, successful and some others even emphasise their bodies. This could prove that the consumer society paid more attention to the consumption market, which decided that the male's body also could be the ‘product' being sold. But there are small number of ‘new man' that we can not lose sight of: â€Å"For instance, some men constructed themselves as caring, sharing, 'emotional' and ‘sensitive' individuals, anxious to share in the joy of domesticity. † (Jagger 2001) This consist with the ‘trait' of consumer society, which apply the masculine subjectivity is complex and multiple, not just unitary. Therefore, as Jagger considered, there are diverse way of being a man, in this complex and multiple post-modern worlds. CONCLUSION: Dating in a post-modern, consumer society through advertisement could be a good experience of self-identify and representing. The consumer culture has provided individuals some important resources for women and men, but it seems that these resources are not equally available to all of them. Although the meaning of ‘femininity' and ‘masculinity' are changing a lot to fit the consumer culture, women still got more problems when dealing with the new setting of social conditions than these to men. Actually, women become more independent and men become more sensitive nowadays, and both of these changes are relatively to the contemporary consumer culture, which gives people more opportunities to identify themselves. All of these ideas have been critically discussed in Jagger's article, which she gives some nice suggestion to people about self-identity and play diversity roles in this consumer society. Not only for advertisers, but also for all of us who care about ourselves.