Augusta Nationals Two Female Members Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Augusta Nationals Two Female Members - Essay Example The Augusta National Golf Club has shown gender discrimination throughout its history by allowing none of its almost 300 members to be a woman until recently, when the Cub took an action long overdue on it by announcing Condoleezza Rice, the former US Secretary of State, and Darla Moore, the South Carolina financier to be its members. The Club was also publicly pressured by Martha Burk, the women’s rights activist in the year 2001 to allow membership to women, but Hootie Johnson, the chairman of the Club at that time said in response that the Club might alter its policy one day â€Å"but not at the point of a bayonet† (Johnson cited in Tyler). When Bubba Watson joined the Augusta National Golf Club’s tradition of wearing the green jacket upon winning the Masters Golf Tournament, the celebrations were tarnished by the exclusive discrimination displayed by the Club towards the women. One of the lawyers said that the implications of this discrimination could be broader and extend to all working women. The Augusta National Golf Club has been disreputable for a long time in history because of its disallowance for women to become its members. â€Å"The fathers and sons of Augusta know full well that they have built for themselves not just a golf course but one of the great corridors of power in America, and with chests fully puffed, have fiercely and proudly denied women access to those corridors† (Brennan).... In addition to that, all of the past IBM CEOs had served as the Club’s members. The only factor that differed this time was that the CEO was a woman unlike the past CEO members who were all men. Payne retreated the discussion and Rometty did not wear the green jacket to symbolize the club’s membership over the weekend. David Scher, the Employment Law Group’s attorney expected the effects of the exclusive policy of the Augusta National Golf Club to reach all working women. He said, â€Å"This is not the only place that this is happening. Free association allows all kinds of clubs, but there are lots of men's organizations that keep women out of the workforce and it is really time for that to change† (Scher cited in Mielach). 21st century is the time for the discrimination to recede, be that against races or genders. Discriminatory policies do not help any organization holding it, but just serves to complicate things for certain members of the society. †Å"Playing golf and other pastimes is integral to the business world, and outright discrimination against women in the private golf world, although technically legal, can have a severe and lasting illegal impact in the workplace† (Scher cited in Mielach). Grant of the Augusta National Golf Club’s membership to two women in this year is a very big milestone in the way of realization of the equality of genders and will have far-reaching effects for all women in the society and bring a positive revolutionary change in the acceptability of women in the business world in general and the sports in particular. Something like selection of women members for the first time since the establishment of a prestigious club will have an effect on the policies of similar

Poem Comparison - Telephone Conversation Essay Example for Free

Poem Comparison Telephone Conversation Essay The context of this poem is of a black man from Africa trying to find accommodation, it is based on his experiences as a student in the 1960s. The poem is written from the perspective as a phone discussion between him and a landlady. The main problem in this poem is that there is a huge amount of racism show by the landlady to the African How dark? Are you light or very dark? This shows immediately that the landlady has something against coloured people and cant have a conversation without knowing the skin colour of the man. It also seems that the landlady would prefer the man not be coloured than to rather receive money for the accommodation. The impression we get from the landlady tells us that she is a very racist and ignorant woman. She first shows this after the man mentions hes an Africa, which she doesnt reply to Silence, silenced transmission of pressurised good breeding. The silence shows us her simple summary of her response of having to think twice about accommodating the black man. She shows that she has a sense of racism in her Considerate she was, varying the emphasis Are you dark? Or very light? This tells us that the landlady is trying to imagine all the colours he could be and shows she judges people totally on colour. We also see that she is wealthy and cares about her image a lot Lipstick coated, long gold rolled cigarette holder piped. From the view of the man he would think she is also a snob due to the way she is speaking to him and her questions. When the conversation starts it begins normally but is changed completely when the man says he is African Self confession I am African. This suggests that the mans skin colour is a sin which he is guilty of. He also feels that he needs to defend himself even before the woman has started to ask any questions. Then after the landlady asked him how dark he was he didnt know how to respond to her Button A, Button B, this shows us that the man is shocked and confused to answer the question just asked. After the man realises that the landlady has a sense of racism in her, he begins to become angry and compares it to the environment he is in Red booth, red pillar box, red double tiered. The red that he is describing represents his feelings which means he is angry and the environment seems repulsive to him. When the man says Like plain or milk chocolate he is talking about his skin colour and at the same time making a clever joke out of it. He is also mocking the landlady and showing her that he is not going to put up with the racist questions anymore. This shows that he is beginning to twist the conversation and is now the person who is asking the questions. He shows this when he says his colour is West African Sepia and then asking her if she knew his skin colour. But as West African Sepia isnt a colour it tells us that the man is using his knowledge to make a fool of her. This makes him feel better due to the fact that he is now criticising her. Also, he feels he wants to make her feel the same way he felt when he had to answer the racist questions. The attitude of the man changes at the end of the poem from being a polite and respectful to an angry and rude man. But he changes his attitude because of the landladys judgement of him and decided to show his angry and rage to show that he is not a weak person. The man is now making fun of her and is mocking her at more length when he speaks about his colour Dont you know what it is? Thats dark, isnt it? He then starts to be rude by offering to show his bottom under the pretence of suggesting she meets him before judging My bottom raven black, wouldnt you rather see for yourself. He does this to make her feel uncomfortable as he was before and tried to put her in a complicated position. The control of power in the beginning of this poem was in the hands of the landlady as she owns the house and is offering the accommodation to the man. As the poem continues her power begins to decrease as the man reverses the situation as he starts to mock her. By the end of the poem the man has gained all the power from the landlady and is so powerful the landlady talks but only when she is asked a question. I think the poet wrote this to show that people who seem to be weak like the African man could be clever enough to gain power. Also, people who are foreign to a country still believe they have rights to fight back to unpleasant comments. You Will Be Hearing From Us Shortly The context of this poem is based on an interview for a position at a company. The interview includes the interviewer and interviewees. The poem is written from the perspective of the interviewer asking questions to the candidates. The main problem in this situation is that there is a sense of prejudice shown by the interviewer to the candidates. Also, the candidates are not being treated fair to even be considered the position at the company. Another problem is that in the poem people are judged on looks and appearance instead of their knowledge and potential. The impression we get from the interviewer is that she wants the interviewee to know that she is in charge and is the only person asking the questions. This is shown in the first stanza when she immediately asks her questions, which shows she has a much more superior attitude than the interviewees You feel adequate to the demands of this position. This shows from the start-off that the interviewer is in control and doesnt show any manners to wait for a response but instead asks the next question. The character of the interviewer develops into being rude and also she doesnt pay attention to the interviewees emotions or feelings. She shows that she is rude when she questions their looks and abilities Find your appearance, disturbing? She also is more direct in asking questions and doesnt hesitate of their reaction this is show hen she questions their accent And your accent that is the way you have always spoken, is it? This gives us the impression that she is insulting the speech of the interviewee. The poet makes us think that the candidate is really weak and doesnt show any sign of defending herself. Also, whenever the interviewer finishes asking a question she also replies for the candidates So glad we agree, Quite so. This shows that they are so powerless they cant be able to answer for themselves. It also shows us that the interviewees seem that they dont care about receiving criticism and do not have the power to stand up and respond. The character of the candidate develops into being more weaker than she is already. She receives more and more criticism from the interviewer and never has the chance to respond due to the interviewers power What of your education? Where were you educated? This shows the interviewer is now not even giving the courtesy of a response and instead goes straight onto the next question, showing the interviewees lack of importance to her. The control of power in this poem was in the hands of the interviewer in the beginning. As the poem continues her power gets stronger and stronger and becomes so strong that at a point youd forget that the candidates are even present. By the end of the poem the interviewer still has all the power possible in the interview and uses it to great effect against the interviewees. I think the poets reasons for writing this poem is to show people that a person who is in a powerful enough position to make judgements of people can have even more power by showing it and using it to their advantage.

American Studies :: essays papers

American Studies American Studies can be a variety of different meanings to a lot of different authors. They are all pretty much on the same note, but with different alterations. For me, I believe that it is to make connections between the past and how it will impact the future. American Studies has transformed overtime. Each individual has their own beliefs and feelings of what it really means. In Gene Wise’s article he states how he is interested in how the field of American Studies has transformed overtime, what American Studies methodology is, and the types of questions that American Studies practitioners ask. I believe that there is no one way to understand America. For Gene, he begins to understand America by looking into the past. On the other hand, there was also the Linda Kerber essay that we had also read at the beginning of the semester. Kerber was saying in her article that there was something that was wrong with the myth and symbolist methodology. She also talked about how there are new approaches and diversity in the field and how it has altered the ways that American Studies practitioners write, teach, and learn. What interested me most in her article is how American Studies was quicker to welcome women and ethnic studies. I believe the answer to this is simply that the women represent a larger group and they are more out spoken. Kerber also saw a great deal of chauvinism with the myth symbolist methodology, as well as this certain approach not looking for structures of power. She looked at points from all different sorts of angles and would then analyze them. Kerber would always have a valid answer and would really go into great detail in her article so that it was easy to pick up the information. These two articles were very much related, but at the same time they were very different. This leads into the past and current methodological approaches in studying American culture and what different authors have to say. â€Å"The methodology of early American Studies practitioners in the 30s, 40s, and 50s was named the symbol myth school approach. They came up with a set of assumptions that would guide those working in the field. 1. There is one homogenous mind 2. The American mind is distinguished by its place in the New World-which makes Americans idealistic, individualist, and pragmatic Europeans by contrast, were tragic in temper and corrupted by old world assumptions

Samsung: Building a Great Brand

Samsung: Building a Great Brand Presented By: Michael Baccus, Marcial De Castro, Judith Dupin, Monica O’Neil, and Jose Santillan Marketing Management- MAR 3023-P80 October 5, 2011 Samsung grew its brand equity by 186 percent in just five years from 2000 to 2005. â€Å"Brand equity is the value of the brand name, its worth as an asset to the company. † (Marketing Principles, 2011, Module 6 p. 1). When new management came into the South Korean based firm, it scraped the all the various brand names that the company was selling low end electronics under, and consolidated by branding all of the company’s products as Samsung. Ten years later,Samsung is a force to be reckoned with to its competitors and a global brand name. However, the decision to only use the brand name Samsung is not the critical key to its success. Samsung has focused on innovation and product design to build its brand equity and it is working. Samsung implemented different innovative ways to inspir e and deliver great designs. The former chairman hired hundreds of new designers, implemented usability laboratories, and opened design centers around the world. The investment in product design, the progressive culture, and Samsung’s ability to step outside the box has all been invaluable in uilding a great brand. The critical activity in the process of Samsung’s transformation into a world- beating developer of new cell phone handset designs and other product line designs was its innovation with investment in product design and quality. Samsung built its brand into a superior brand by thinking and acting outside of the box. Instead of focusing on textbook product development funnels, it focused on more cutting edge methods such as the implementation design centers staffed with highly trained, creative, and skilled young designers and no bureaucracy to get in the way of design and innovation.According to Roll (2011), â€Å"Samsung has created a strong brand around in novation, cutting edge technology and world class design. † (para. 1). Samsung Chairman Lee Kun Hee concluded that â€Å"great design and innovation would be the way to build Samsung into a great global brand,† and he was correct (Marketing Principles, Module 6, p. 1). Instead of forming panels and hiring managers or more marketers to come up with new gimmicks, he hired hundreds of designers. The designers were from prestigious colleges of design and had an average age of just 33. The design force at Samsung multiplied y over 400% to over 400 designers in 10 years. This out of the take on product development allowed Samsung to transform its product line into world class. Competitors such as Sony have also followed in Samsung’s footsteps. According to Kunkel: â€Å"With nearly 250 industrial designers; graphic, packaging, and logotype designers; user- interface specialists and Web designers working in offices from Tokyo to San Francisco to Cologne, the Sony Desig n Center is responsible for nearly 2,000 new products, concepts, packaging schemes and design strategies every year, driving sales of products nd services totaling nearly $50 billion per year† (Product Description, para. 2). Although Sony also employs a lot of designers, Samsung still leads the industry in allowing their designs to inspire innovation. Samsung’s progressive culture of effective, efficient, and fast implementation is part of its advantage over competitors. According to the dynamic theory of competition presented in Marketing Principles (2011): â€Å"Suppliers with an insatiable improvement drive are more competitive. † â€Å"Suppliers who implement effectively, efficiently, and faster are more competitive. † (Module 1 p. 6).Samsung changes its product line three times as fast as its competition such as Motorola. Samsung has shown agility, according to Marketing Principles (2011) â€Å"†¦ i. e. the ability to implement change to change processes to introduce new technologies, new skills into the organization very quickly and effectively† (Module 1 p. 7). Change is managed very well at Samsung and they have lower manufacturing cost on top of their time to market being faster than that of competitors. Samsung avoids bureaucracy at its 24/7 design centers. Designers can work through problems without being delayed by non-productive orporate presentations and politics. Samsung has a constant focus on improvement and being faster and implementing the next innovation before the completion. Fackler (2006) explained, â€Å"†Our TVs are better,† Nobuyuki Oneda, Sony's chief financial officer, said in an interview earlier this year. †But Samsung's cash flow is amazing. It is hard to invest in and develop products† at the same pace as Samsung. † (para. 23). Samsung’s use of usability laboratories have been key in its market orientation skills and understanding the user interface. Sa msung does not follow the textbook best-practice of product development, which is idely now considered â€Å"yesterday’s best practice† in product development. According to Marketing Principles, Samsung uses concurrent engineering and fast prototyping in an around the clock approach to problem solving (Module 6 Case 2 p. 1). The traditional best practice only produces a success rate of 50 percent in product development. This out dated way of thinking is burdened with â€Å"gates†. These gates are where bureaucracy in an organization can delay forward movement of the product design. Samsung has â€Å"decentralized† and broke away from this way of development.It is actually criticized in the case study with the example of the use of Samsung’s design centers. Product development is free to develop in a creative environment without lawyers or other hold ups. Samsung has taken its out of the box approach and its investment in design and turned it into p rofits. As Marketing Principles explains, according to the current CEO of Samsung â€Å"we still have a lot of things to do before we are a great company. † (Module 6 Case 2 p. 2) With that approach and its constant drive to beat itself, The Samsung brand equity is likely to continue to grow. References:Marketing Principles. (2011). Portsmouth, NH: Backbone Press Frackler, M. (2006). Electronics company aims to create break-out product. The New York Times, p. C. 1. Kunkel, P. (1999, September 4). Product Description [Review of the book Digital Dreams: The Work of the Sony Design Center]. Amaonz. com. Retrieved from http://www. amazon. com/Digital-Dreams-Work-Design-Center/dp/0789302624 Roll, M. (2011). Samsung: Building brand equity through brand community. Venture Republic. Retrieved from http://www. venturerepublic. com/resources/Samsung_Building_brand_equity_through_brand_community. asp

Analysis of Kate Chopin’s “The Storm” Essay

Kate Chopin’s short story, â€Å"The Storm,† generally revolves around the theme of adultery. This is depicted by the story’s two main characters, Calixta and Alcee, who became involved in a momentary affair with one another. In the story, Alcee, who is Calixta’s former lover, had to take refuge into her home because of a strong storm passing by. Upon doing so, the two rekindled their past affections, which are mainly sensual, for each other.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The theme of adultery was first depicted the moment Calixta let Alcee into her home. This was also the first instance that the author showed that she may still have hidden desires for Alcee. This was vividly illustrated when Calixta was â€Å"startled† (Chopin) by Alcee as if she was in a â€Å"trance† (Chopin). Although she was mainly concerned for her husband, Bobinà ´t, and her son, Bibi, who both decided to remain on a store until the storm had passed, she eventually gave in to Alcee when he hugged her and they subsequently had sex, which signifies that her feelings for him were still alive.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   However, despite the fact that adultery was evidently the main theme of the story, the actions of Calixta and Alcee had no negative consequences or adverse affects. This was shown when the author depicted that the sexual activity of the two heightened just as the storm ravaged the surroundings. In short, like any other storm, the author implied that adultery was normal and natural. This was further supported by the last sentence in the story which was â€Å"So the storm passed and everyone was happy† (Chopin). In other words, the storm symbolized, in a way, the adulterous acts of Calixta and Alcee. But the difference is, their actions did not adversely affect any character in the story as everyone remained happy. Works Cited Chopin, Kate. â€Å"The Storm.† About.com. 2008. 27 September 2008 .