War Against Boys Essays - Childhood, American Enterprise Institute

War Against Boys It is a bad time to be a boy in America. As the new millennium began, the defining event for American girls was the triumph of the U.S. women's soccer team. For boys, the major event was the mass killing at Columbine High School. It would seem that boys in our society face great difficulties and risks as they grow up. Yet the best-known studies and the academic experts are telling us that it is girls who are suffering from a decline in self-esteem. The experts say that it is girls who need extra help with academics and elsewhere in a society that favors boys. Christina Hoff Sommers, a Ph.D. in philosophy and a former professor of philosophy at Clark University, disagrees with the increasingly popular feminist views. Sommers believes that it is boys who are being shortchanged in a society that is rapidly becoming overrun with feminist views. There is no girl crisis, says Sommers. Girls are not being pushed aside, shortchanged, or repressed in American society argues Sommers. Girls are outperforming boys academically, and girls' self-esteem is no different from boys'. Sommers believes that it is boys who are lagging far behind girls and Sommers attempts to prove this in her book: The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism is Harming our Young Men. Sommers argues three main points in this book. First, boys encounter more difficulties growing up in America today and being successful in schools and colleges, than do girls. More boys than girls are involved in crime, alcohol, and drugs. Girls attempt suicide more often than boys, but boys actually kill themselves more often. In a typical year (1997), there were 4,493 suicides of young people between the ages of five and twenty-four: 701 females, 3,792 males (Sommers 26). Research shows that boys, not girls, are on the weak side of an educational gender gap. Boys, on average, are a year and a half behind girls in reading and writing; they are less committed to school and less likely to go to college (Sommers 14). More boys than girls are suspended from school. More are held back and more drop out. Boys are three times as likely as girls to be enrolled in special education programs and four times as likely to be diagnosed with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)(Sommers 25). Larry Hedges and Amy Nowell, researchers at the University of Chicago, warned that the larger numbers of males who perform near the bottom of the distribution in reading comprehension and writing also have policy implications. It seems more likely t hat individual males with such poor literacy skills will have problems finding jobs in an increasingly information-driven economy (Sommers 34). Second, boys are being confronted with challenges that arise from a society and educational system that are increasingly biased towards them. A boy today finds himself caught up in the social crime of shortchanging girls. Yet the supposedly silenced and neglected girl sitting next to him is likely to be a better student. She is not only more expressive, she is probably a more mature, engaged, and well-balanced person. He may be uncomfortably aware that girls are more likely to go on to college. He may believe that teachers prefer to be around girls and pay more attention to them. At the same time, he may also be aware that he is considered to be a member of the unfairly favored dominant gender(Sommers 43). More and more schoolboys inhabit an environment of disapproval. Often considered protosexists, potential harassers, and perpetuators of gender inequity, boys live under a blanket of criticism, in a permanent state of responsibility. Third, this bias comes from the acceptance of certain major assumptions of feminism that have spread like wildfire through science, academia, the media, government, and more. The main promoters of a gender equal academic system have a lot of power in schools, but they are far too irresponsible with the truth, far too removed from the boundaries of common sense, and far too negative about boys to be properly playing any role in the education of children (Sommers 51). Feminists have been telling our culture for years that girls are falling behind in school, they're being repressed in society, and losing out

Hex Words

Hex Words Hex Words Hex Words By Maeve Maddox Most of the English words that begin with hex are scientific terms used by mathematicians, chemists, and medical practitioners. A few, however, are encountered in general use. As a combining form in English, hex- means six. hexagon In geometry, a hexagon is a plane figure having six sides and six angles. The adjective is hexagonal. The adverb is hexagonally. hexahedron In geometry, a hexahedron is a solid figure having six faces, especially the â€Å"regular hexahedron† or cube. You will encounter the word if you do origami. hexapod The element pod means foot. A hexapod is an animal that has six feet. Insectswhich have three pairs of legsare classed in the subphylum Hexapoda. hexagram In geometry, a hexagram is a figure of six lines. The figure can take more than one form, but the most familiar is that of two intersecting equilateral triangles as seen in the Star of David. Its use as an identifying symbol of Judaism began in the Middle Ages, but its religious usage began much earlier. The symbol, under various names, appears in the imagery of Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, Mormonism, Rastafarianism, Theosophy, and Freemasonry. Known as â€Å"Solomon’s Seal,† the symbol is used in magic and witchcraft. In the symbolism of heraldry, the hexagram is called â€Å"a mullet of six points.† The Chinese â€Å"Book of Changes† (I-Ching) is based on 64 hexagrams that are not interlocked triangles. They are figures of six parallel (whole or divided) lines. hexadecimal In computing and mathematics, a system of numerical notation that employs 16 rather than 10 as the base is called hexadecimal. Two hex words outside the mathematical realm are: hexarchy A hexarchy is a loose confederation of six states or kingdoms, each governed by its own ruler. hexameter A line of verse made up of six metrical feet is called a hexameter. The hexameter was the standard epic meter in classical Greek and Latin literature. Finally, there’s the witching word hex, which has nothing to do with six. The verb hex, â€Å"to practice witchcraft,† came into American English from Pennsylvania German settlers. German hexen, â€Å"to hex,† is related to the German word Hexe, â€Å"witch.† The English word hag derives from the same source. The earliest English form, haegtesse, was the equivalent of â€Å"woman of prophetic and oracular powers.† Does it surprise anyone that the word eventually dwindled into â€Å"ugly, bad-tempered, malicious old woman†? As a noun, a hex is a magical spell or curse. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Vocabulary category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:The Royal Order of Adjectives 50 Idioms About Roads and PathsApostrophe with Plural Possessive Nouns

Derrick, From Gothic King to Cranes and Oil Rigs

Derrick, From Gothic King to Cranes and Oil Rigs Derrick, From Gothic King to Cranes and Oil Rigs Derrick, From Gothic King to Cranes and Oil Rigs By Maeve Maddox The family name Derrick derives from the personal name commonly spelled Derek, which is a shortening of the Germanic name Theodoric, â€Å"ruler of the people.† Theodoric the Great (454-526), king of the Ostrogoths and eventual de facto ruler of Italy, probably inspired a great many European namesakes. Numerous versions of the name exist, including Darrick, Derrik, Diederick, Diederik, Dieter, and Dirk. The name existed in England as Deoric and Deodric during Anglo-Saxon times, but fell out of favor during the medieval period. It was reintroduced into the British Isles from the Low Countries in the 15th century. One bearer of the name was Thomas Derrick, an Englishman who lived during the reign of Elizabeth I. Convicted of rape and sentenced to death, Derrick was pardoned by the second Earl of Essex on condition that he serve as hangman at Tyburn, the principal execution location for criminals, traitors and religious dissenters. Derrick is said to have executed more than 3,000 people. Ironically, his pardoner, the Earl of Essex, was one of them, although not at Tyburn. Because of his noble blood, Essex was beheaded on Tower Green in the Tower of London, the last person, by the way, to be executed there. Perhaps because most of his experience was with hangings at Tyburn, Derrick had to swing the axe three times before finishing the job on the earl. Such was Derrick’s professional fame that his name became generic for hangman. His name survives as a common noun in modern English, but with a different meaning. When Thomas Derrick took up his duties at Tyburn, hangings were carried out with a rope passed over a beam. He modernized the process by adding a topping lift and pulleys to the beam to make it easier to lift and lower the condemned person. The new device was soon known as a Derrick. The word for a device invented to make it easier to lift and lower bodies has come to mean â€Å"a contrivance for hoisting or moving heavy weights.† The following examples illustrate the Elizabethan hangman’s legacy in modern usage: As we left Woodall’s place, old oil derricks stretched up from platforms on the water around the Highway 42 bridge.   Derricks  at other ports for the use of sea-going ships were completed or partially completed when stopped by the armistice. Cranes and  derricks  that are located at a  shipbuilding/shipyard  facility and are shore-based (e.g., shop cranes, yard cranes) do not require certification. Derricks  and masts  are vital structural fixtures to a drilling operation.   Construction derricks prick the  skyline  of every city. The common noun derrick is an eponym. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Vocabulary category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:100 Exquisite Adjectives16 Misquoted QuotationsRite, Write, Right, Wright

Creating and Marketing a new product Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Creating and Marketing a new product - Essay Example But on the other hand complications have also increased as we try to understand and use each of the gadgets separately. It is from these complications that we have identified a new need of getting everything available to users in a single device. The product we have come up is called ‘E-Wall’ which will help users of technology manage everything from a single place using a single device. In this report we will talk in detail about the product, marketing plan and strategy, business strategy, and operations. We will also discuss how we will establish it as a legal entity and protect the innovation from being copied by any company. We will also establish the target market of the proposed product. E-Wall E-Wall is an electronic wall that will act as a screen. This screen will display everything that a person needs to carry out his or her daily technology related operations. The screen will serve as a laptop, television, cell phone etc for users. Basically everything users wa nt will be displayed on the E-Wall and users will be able to control it through a tablet. This tablet will serve as a key board for users which they will use to change icons on the wall. The aim of the technology is to bring everything together in one place so that users can easily access it. The device will also save space as it will be placed on the wall. Only a small server will be attached to the screen to feed data into the wall. The main purpose of E-Wall is to integrate all the present technology currently being used by the people worldwide. There is a need to join them together so that users can get a single point of access. Another purpose of the product is to make everything easily available to users of technology. The idea behind E-Wall is to get everything on a single wall so that everything can be managed easily. This product will not only make access to different technologies easily. E-Wall will display everything on a large surface (wall) which will increase visibilit y and also users will be able to use everything without even moving from one place to another or without juggling different devices at the same time. E-Wall will serve as a display screen for all of the existing technology. It will just integrate existing technology into one device. A key attribute of the device is that it will allow users to access everything on the E-Wall through a touch screen tablet. This will allow mobility without compromising on size of the display or the number of technologies available. This key advantage will make this device desirable for many segments of the society. Establishing Legal Entity It is important to form a legal entity in order to operate any official business therefore we have decided to form a Limited Liability Partnership company. This is type of company offers the benefits of both corporations and partnership, and this is why we have preferred it over other forms. The most important element of this form of company is the limited liability of partners. Limited liability restricts the liability of the partners and separates personal and company assets. It is relatively safe to go for a limited liability company as personal assets are not secured in case of liquidation. The next step will be to register a name of the company and a trademark which will be used both for transaction and for marketing purposes. By registering a trademark we will also ensure that no one is able to copy our name or sign in any way. Trademark is very important in today’

University level Statistics Maths problem Speech or Presentation

University level Statistics Maths problem - Speech or Presentation Example Q1. (vi) The data points outside the range [Q1-1.5*IQR, Q3+1.5*IQR] are termed as outliers. For the dataset this range is [6.5, 82.5]. As there is no data point outside of this range. Hence there are no outliers. Q2 (ii) He should definitely construct two frequency histograms. Only then he will be able to visualize the true picture of the difference in capabilities of the two sexes in solving the mental rotation problems. (a) A histogram of a variable and residual should be drawn. If the histogram of the variables shows rough normality and that of residuals show normality then it is taken as an evidence of normality. (http://faculty.chass.ncsu.edu/garson/PA765/assumpt.htm) (b) Kolmogorov-Smirnov D test or K-S Lilliefors test, is a test of normality for large samples. This test is available in SPSS under Analyze, Descriptive Statistics, Explore, Plots. Here one needs to check "Normality plots with

The Great Depression in America Essay -- essays research papers

The Great Depression Irving Fisher, an economist at Yale University in 1929, confidently stated, â€Å"The nation is marching along a permanently high plateau of prosperity.† Less than a week later, the bottom dropped out of the stock market sending the American economy toward its worst downfall in history. The Great Depression was not only responsible for a dramatic change in the structure of American politics, but also for a change in Americans’ expectations about government. The Depression affected all Americans, rich or poor, and was responsible for ushering numerous social problems into the lives of citizens. Herbert Hoover was elected president in 1928. Prior to his election, during his acceptance speech for the Republican nomination, he stated, â€Å"We in America today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of any land. The poorhouse is vanishing from among us.† Many Americans shared Hoover’s optimism in the beginning of 1929. On January 1, 1929, The New York Times printed an editorial reading, â€Å"It has been twelve months of unprecedented advance, of wonderful prosperity. If there is any way of judging the future by the past, this new year will be one of felicitation and hopefulness.† Later that year, on Tuesday, October 29, the market crashed. This day is known as â€Å"Black Tuesday† and is considered the single most devastating financial day in the history of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Prices...

Different Parenting Styles on Children

Researcher Diana Baumrind, help to identify and describe the four basic parenting styles; authoritative, authoritarian, permissive, and uninvolved parents. Research studies have proven that parenting style has a massive impact on a child's psycho-social development. Parenting styles have different outcomes on a child’s social relationships, school performance, and self-esteem. Authoritarian parents lack emotional nurturing. Permissive parents lack structure, but are better at providing more emotional support. Authoritative parenting is a combination of both authoritarian and permissive. Authoritative parents are better at setting ground rules and specific boundaries and sticking to them while also giving the child the emotional support they need. Uninvolved parenting is when children have parents that tend to neglect them. Uninvolved parents are so wrapped up in themselves and could care less about providing their child with emotional support or focusing on their child’s wants and needs. The authoritative parenting style is the most positive style for children. Consequently, children who have parents that are permissive or uninvolved engage in more high risk criminal behaviors that have a lasting effect on into adulthood. Keywords: Parenting, authoritative, authoritarian, permissive, uninvolved, psycho-social development â€Å"No surprise that there are big differences in the ways we approach parenting – our culture, the situations in our lives, and even the way our parents raised us influence what we think is the right way to parent† (Ritter, 2011). Since the 1920's, health and psychology experts have wondered why children behave the way that they do. They developed an interest in a child’s behavior and the style of parenting used in the home. Diana Baumrind is a psychologist and expert in parenting adopted the four differing parenting styles. She was responsible for the idea that different parents have different parenting styles and have a different way of raising their children. Research has suggested cultural specifics sometimes play a part in parenting strategies in their relation to a child’s behavior problems. Socioeconomic statuses were also found to have an effect on child-rearing practices. Social status can have a major effect on the parental-child relationship which can cause the parents to be a lot less nurturing. This research is to uncover the different parenting styles and the effect it has on a child’s educational, mental, and social development. â€Å"Parents are high on control but low on responsiveness. They emphasize rigid behavior standards, place a premium on obedience, and are emotionally distant and unresponsive† (Conger, Simons, Gordon, Leslie 2007). This style of parenting relates to authoritarian parents. These parents attempt to mold their child into what they would like to see them grow up to be. Authoritarian parents try to control their child’s actions by enforcing strict rules, and boundaries. This is the parenting style that allows no room for error or change. These parents lack affection in their style of parenting and are a lot less nurturing. â€Å"Children with authoritarian parents tend to do less well in school, are typically less skilled than their peers and have lower self-esteem. Children can appear passive or highly aggressive. The children's wishes have not been listened to nor valued† (Baumrind, 1991). These children lack the social skills needed for healthy relationships, however, they do very well when it comes to academics. Children of authoritarian parents have very good listening skills and are use to obeying rules and always having someone tell them what to do. They do this in order to avoid getting in to trouble. Authoritarian parenting is defined as punitive. Punitive parents tend to use physical punishment as a way of disciplining their child or children. Research has shown that parents who use physical punishment to discipline their children learned it from previous generations. Both theory and research suggest that harsh physical discipline is likely to undermine adolescent efforts to express autonomy and relatedness. Experiences of harsh discipline may lessen an adolescent’s sense of felt security in the family, and thus signal to the adolescent that relationships with parents are too fragile to survive an increase in autonomy† (Bender, Allen, McElhaney, An tonishak, Moore, Kelly, Davis, 2007). Children with punitive parents often suffer from depression, lower self-esteem, and lack social skills. A problem with children that have authoritarian parents is that when a child is in need of guidance or needs help solving a problem, they often turn to someone that they can trust, feel loved, and accepted by. Authoritarian parents have such high standards for their children in order for them to be successful adults, but they fail to realize they are missing out on real opportunities to provide the guidance that their child needs the most. It is healthy to have high expectations and limits for children but it is unhealthy when the balance love and affection is not defined. This is a balance that authoritarian parents need to find in order to successfully raise their child or children. Children with authoritarian parents tend to have more mischievous behaviors then their peers’. These children lie a lot and hide their behaviors for fear what their parents will say and do. They are afraid to be honest because of the consequences that can be given or have previously been given for their actions. Even if the child’s behavior is positive, and the parent does not agree that the child should be doing the active and that this is something that goes against what the parent has planned. The child will begin to hide all their behaviors even if they could receive negative or positive feedback. Furthermore, these parents fail to realize that their children are lying to avoid always being punished and that they are helping their child develop a life full of deceitful behavior. Permissive parents are parents that seek more pleasure out of their children and are more open to letting their children to behave any way they would like. According to Baumrind, permissive parents â€Å"are more responsive than they are demanding. They are nontraditional and lenient, do not require mature behavior, allow considerable self-regulation, and avoid confrontation† (Baumrind, 1991). â€Å"Research has also shown permissive parenting to be associated with negative outcomes such as school misconduct, substance abuse and low frustration tolerance† (Ang, 2005). Permissive parents have an uncontrollable love for their child but prefer to be more of the child’s friend than their parent. Permissive parents have a harder time when it comes to setting boundaries and struggle to carry out the consequences. These parents have few rules to keep order in the home such as, table manners, chores, bedtimes, homework, mealtimes, and being responsible. Permissive parents tend to let their children have control over their own behavior and make their own decisions. Even though permissive parents are loving, their lack for setting boundaries causes their children to suffer from insecurities. Lack of boundaries can cause a child to become selfish. Children with permissive parents have a high level of self –esteem and develop better social skills; however they tend to have more problematic behavior. These children lack motivation and interest in school because they are not held responsible for their actions. Children of permissive parents are self-centered and lack discipline. These children do not have many friends and lack good social skills. â€Å"Although authoritarian and permissive parenting styles appear to represent opposite ends of the parenting spectrum, neither style has been linked to positive outcomes,† (Bornstein, Bornstein, 2007). Children with permissive parents have a lot of insecurities because of the relationship that they have with their parents. They feel that their parents could care less about them. After all, these children have the freedom to do whatever they want and their parents not pay them any attention, or give them the guidance that they need to have a successful life. Dismissive parenting; or neglectful parenting; are also known as the uninvolved parenting style. This parenting style is almost like permissive parenting. One difference between the two styles is; uninvolved parents could care less about their children. These parents â€Å"lack emotional involvement and do not provide proper supervision† to their child (Dubai, 2009). Uninvolved parents provide for only their child’s basic needs such as, food, shelter, and clothing. One of the worse cases for these children is that some of these neglectful parents have major addictive behaviors which may leave the child to act as their own parent or guardian. A lot of these children lack the basic social and academic skills needed to have a successful life. They may even begin to become involved in criminal behaviors. These children do not attend school regularly which causes them to have poor academic records and a higher dropout rate. These children are more subject to become victims of physical, mental, sexual and emotional abuse due lack of supervision from their parents. These children have been found to have lasting mental and physical health problems that can affect them on into adulthood. Dismissing a child’s feelings or needs by ignoring them or telling them to forget it or get over it can have tremendous effects on their development as they grow into adulthood. The child will learn how to hold back their emotions and will have trouble with expressing their emotions properly to the people around them. Additionally, the child will develop problems establishing positive, healthy, and safe relationships. These children will even have trouble in school. Most times uninvolved parents try not to have any type of interaction with their child. These parents tend to keep themselves deeply involved in their work and any other activity they may feel is more important than their child. An uninvolved parent is a parenting style that can be learned from previous generations. Their parents may have also appeared to always be too busy to raise them, show them love, and affection, or give them positive influence for their life. Finally, children of uninvolved or neglectful parents have been found to be rated at the lowest level of all domains in life; physical, social, educational, and cognitive. The most positive, loving, warmest, parenting style would be the authoritative parent. Authoritative parents are more open to disciplining their misbehaving child; however their punishments are not very strict. They are more involved in their child’s life than the uninvolved parents and are not as harsh as authoritarian parents. Baumrind stated authoritative parents â€Å"monitor and impart clear standards for their children’s conduct. They are assertive, but not intrusive and restrictive. Their disciplinary methods are supportive, rather than punitive. They want their children to be assertive as well as socially responsible, and self-regulated as well as cooperative† (Baumrind, 1991). Research has shown that children who are raised by authoritative parents have higher self-esteem levels, rely more on themselves, and tend to listen more cooperatively to rules. With all of these positive influences in the child’s life they tend to be more successful in their academics and later on in life in their careers as adults. It was found that higher socioeconomic status parents are more like to display an authoritative parenting style, i. e. they are responsive to the needs of their children, and foster demands through bidirectional communication and the encouragement of independence† (Chng, no date). Authoritative parents are firm, fair, and provide continuous discipline to help their child develop proper behavior skills. These parents actively listen and consider the child’s opinions and feelings about decisions. This parent can clearly explain their expectations to their children and encourage their child to do well in all of life’s domains; such s mental, social, physical and emotional. Authoritative parents find pleasure in the child’s accomplishments. The style of parenting used by authoritative parents tends to balance the differences between authoritarian and permissive parenting styles. For example, when a parent tried to get their child obey them, no matter how the child feels or what they think about it, there times when a parent needs to step back and allow their child to make their own mistakes and do things on their own without have the parent there to interfere. In all, children that are raised by authoritative parents have more freedom to explore and be and find themselves, while receiving the love, affection, and support that they need to have a successful while have certain boundaries that have been set by their parent. Parenting styles can determine how a child will develop in the major areas of their life. After researching and learning the major impact that the four parenting styles have on a child’s development it has been shown that the authoritative parenting style has the most productive and positive effects on children. Authoritative parents instill proper amount of love, encouragement, and nourishment, while also setting the right amount of boundaries for their child. We can also evaluate that the â€Å"lack of parental involvement, poor monitoring and supervision, and harsh and inconsistent discipline, have all been established as strong predictors of antisocial outcomes in children and adolescents† (Dadds, Hawes, 2006). Authoritative parenting style can be a hard style to develop and achieve, because of culture, family size, generational background, economic status, educational level, religion and even different personalities between the parent and child. Child temperament may elicit certain parenting styles just as parenting styles may affect the relations between child temperament and behavior. It is possible that early levels of behavior problems influence parenting styles and behavior in middle childhood, which in turn influence later behavior problems† (Williams, Degnan, Perez-E dgar, Henderson, Rubin, Pine, Steinberg, Fox, 2009). It is important for parents to find a healthy parenting style that will positively produce a healthy, loving, happy child.