Is Race and Gender Discrimination Eliminated - Essay Example

Social policy Social policy is basically set of instructions and arbitration for altering the problems of society and makes the living conditions suitable for people. Social policy consists of laws that are related to those societal issues that directly affect the lives of people. The major social problems that nearly every society has to face are race discrimination, gender and disability discrimination. This is understood that when we deal with the people unjustly and make differences betwixt them, then problems are created. These race, gender and disability discrimination are the issues that if remain unsolved or the laws related to these issues are not implemented properly and with force, till then no when can expect that, the people living there are happy. Now before proceeding further question is raised that, wherefrom race discrimination comes? Racism is the creed that race is the primeval determining factor of human qualities and capacities (Hirsh, 2004). The word Race is basically used for a specific group of people that formed due to likeness of environs, likeness of nature or likeness of skin colors. Even within the countries, in provinces, in cities, people have their own distinct culture and tradition, so they are usually renowned by their specific race. Now if somewhere (it can be any country) immigrants are present on a large scale, like in United States. And the native people of that country look deep upon the immigrants then obviously they become depressed and think themselves unsafe, unprotected. They have less job opportunities, no health and finance facilities; they cant take advantage of any of the government policy and becomes mental patient with the passage of time. Basically laws are made but white people never forced to abide by these laws (Findlaw, 2009). As a result, sometimes the priority complex of the white people is gone to such extent that they do not think black people as humans and usually treat them in a more worse manner as compared to animals. But its reaction can be severe, consider an example that a man is bowed on the spring and compresses it in a wild manner, then we observe that when he compresses the spring and then go on compressing initially the spring would not resists but eventually a stage comes when the spring restores itself and strike back on the mouth of the man who compresses it (Garcia, 2005). Therefore similar to the spring, when black people are treated harshly then finally a stage comes, where there as a reaction to all of these situations, the black people commit crimes and create problems for the government and other people. In actuality when government cannot implement its laws on one party then the morale of opposition is also raised and they also start disobeying the laws and as a result law enforcing agencies become powerless. We can judge that how much people commit crime due to these race differences, according to the Associated Press of 23 October 1998, "In total, thirteen percent (1.4 million) of Black American men could not vote in the 1998 American elections because they were convicted criminals."(OP, 1999) However according to the survey it is revealed that in the states of Alabama and Florida, many citizens are negated from their rights, 33 percent of all black men in these states are forbidden from casting of ballots. As according to the latest survey of crime victims by the U.S Department of Justice, "there are more than 6.6 million vehement felonies (murder, rape, assault and burglary) are commenced in the U.S each year, of which about 20 per cent, or 1.3 million, are inter-racial crimes. Most victims of race crime, about 90 percent are white. Almost 1 million white Americans were killed, plundered, attacked or raped by black Americans in 1992, compared with about 132,000 blacks who were killed, plundered, attacked or raped by whites."( Opera, 2010) What are the core factors behind? Somehow these factors are discussed by taking the example of United States. In America in addition to native people, there are African people (initially took as slave by the Americans) called as black, American Indians, Hispanics, Asian/Pacific Islanders are also present. In the U.S there are many black people, therefore in the United States this term is usually known as "The race war of Black against White". This is a psyche of a person that when he/she is neglected by anyone, or someone snatch his/her rights, what courts gave to him/her, then he/she wants to show the others that, what he/she can do? Because now they feel so helpless and as a result they become hopeless and believes that there is no law to help them or to save them from these cruel people (Yuracko, 2004). And now if no proper opportunities are available for them to show their abilities, then they used illegal means to reach their destination, or commit other illegal activities to show what he/she can do or able to do. This is a psychological phenomena that when someone loves someone then he/she always just ready to sacrifice all his/her possessions for that person, like his/her life and money, similarly if someone hatred someone then the whole situation is reversed, now he/she wants to snatch all things from that person even his/her life. As we know that clap is made by the two hands, therefore these criminal activities are also from the both sides. If both either ignores each other faults or follow the social policies made by the government, then there must be no crime and violent activities. However while analyzing the survey made by the Department of Justice, it can be concluded that, blacks committed 7.5 times more vehement inter racial activities than whites, in spite of the fact that black population is only one seventh of the spatial dimension of the white population (Goldscheid, 2008). However if we analyzed this data on per person basis, then there disclosed an unusual difference that blacks are executing more than 50 times the vehement racial crimes of whites. As according to the annual report by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on murder, "Most inter-racial murders involve black aggressors and white victims, with blacks murdering whites at 18 times the rate that whites murder blacks."(FBI) Weakness of the laws behaves as reinforcement for the criminal activities. This awesome realities commence to be revealed on a large scale in the mid 1960s, when there is a sudden increase in the rate of crimes committed by the black people against white people, and this sudden rise is just commence with the commencing of the modern civil rights movement. This rate of crime is increased with the passage of time. We can judge that how much this difference betwixt races affects the whole society. As statistics made by the FBI and Justice Department described that betwixt 1964 and 1994 more than 25 million vehement inter-racial felonies were commenced, in a decisive manner entangling black transgressors and white deceits, and more than 45,000 people were murdered in inter-racial murders (Schucher, 2008). If we compare these killings with the war of Vietnam and Korea, 58,000 Americans put to death in Vietnam and 34,000 were murdered in the Korean War. When non vehement crimes (robbery, theft, and car theft) are comprised, the accruing totals become astonishing. 27 million non vehement felonies were commenced in the U.S in 1992, and the observation instituted that 31 percent of the burglaries entangled black transgressors and white deceits. Now when we analyze collectively all the felony figures that are calculated, it is concluded that black Americans have commenced not less than 170 million felonies while comparing with white Americans in the past 30 years. Now the height of reaction can be seen which appears, just because of the societal policies that are not followed by the white Americans. Therefore from the above data the final result attained is that, this war which is fought, due to the indifference betwixt the two races is the great disaster of American life and American ideals since World War II. In order to uproot anything we must have to look upon the basic reason or cause that why this happens. Same case here, we know that the basic cause of these awesome crimes is the inequality betwixt the people of America because of lack of social issues. Here the term "people of America" is used because if seen in a broader spectrum then, black people live here from more than 80,90 years, their children born, play and grown in America (Wigger, 2008). Then they must have same rights as the white people have. And this is not our generosity, every person who lives in U.S earns for his living. Everyone living in America may be black, American Indians, Hispanics, Asian/Pacific Islanders plays a part in the progress of U.S, and he must have the same rights as the white people of America have. And when this thinking power develops, and people abide by the social policies made by the government and courts then U.S becomes a heaven on this earth and people dream to live in it (Larson, 2003). Second social problem that prods because of lack of social policies is gender discrimination. Workforce is a backbone of every country and no country can make progress by leaps and bounds without having an experienced and happy workforce. This issue gender discrimination can be said, annihilate the workforce of every country and besides that makes the society environment unable to live. Now question is raised that why someone feels that he/she is look down by others? In psychology, self-esteem represents sense of ones own worth, sense of ones own value. Self esteem comprises of, hem of beliefs and emotions (Thomas, 2003). Self esteem is basically, the thoughts of a man/woman that he/she thinks about his/her self, for example if someone purchases something for his/her self, and when he/she wear it and comes outside of the house…next day, he thinks that oh!, the dress color chosen by that women is quite beautiful, and that woman looks gorgeous in that particular dress. Now when he/she thinks that he/she is superior to him/her, then they feel depressed. And this problem is now arises to such an extent, just because this is the age of “modernization” and “globalization”. Now women’s are everywhere in the commercials. And usually in the commercials, women’s are just used as an advertisement. Before going in detail of this, somewhat about globalization is that, globalization in its verbatim apprehends is the process of world wide, transformation of some things or phenomena into global ones. It can be depicted as a process by which the people of world are united into a single society, and work together (Monaghan, 2005). Shirley Chisholm said that, “The emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says, Its a girl” (Shirley Chisholm0. “Symmetry” is the beauty of nature. There’s always a balance and proportion betwixt the things of this world bestowed by the nature, just to beautify the beauty of this world. But if we analyze this symmetry of nature carefully and in detail then we come to the point that except beautifying there is a special purpose of every specie that exists on this world. All creatures enjoys a balance betwixt themselves, a balancing factor is associated to each creature and altered with respect to the kind of help they provide to their partners. Similarly men and women are believed as partners that provide assistance to each other in all matters from all perspectives (Cnstat, 2007). As depicted by Henry Kissinger that, “Nobody will ever win the Battle of the Sexes.  Theres just too much fraternizing with the enemy” (Henry Kissinger). But this mutual assistance is influenced because of the clashes that exist betwixt these two genders and usually known as “gender discrimination”. Gender discrimination is because of the natural abilities that is awarded by the nature but the society, social policy and the culture of a particular country also has a strong influence and means a lot in defining the limitations for both male and female, for example naturally men are bodily strong while women are of sensitive type, women are emotional whereas as compare to women men are quite and calm. Both these arguments are depicted from the saying of Sarah Moore Grimke that, “I ask no favors for my sex.... All I ask of our brethren is that they will take their feet from off our necks” (Sarah Moore). Both opposite sexes have affection for each other, but this affection cannot eliminate the differences betwixt them. Actually sex and gender discrimination have different aspects in the social lives, sex is the basic need that keeps both male and female close to each other, while on the basis of gender discrimination it is decided that men are superior to the women because they are physically strong and earns money for them and many more. As this case is mainly solved by the human resource management or in other words it can be said, that in the working environment human resource management is the supreme working body that makes sure, that social policies made by the government and court are followed by the workers irrespective of their gender. Therefore before proceeding further, it is important to have a brief view about human resource management (George W. & Shepherd, 2007). Human Resources Management (HRM) includes two vast areas, personnel management and development functions. The HRM function comprised a variety of activities, and fundamentals among them is deciding what employees you need to have, either male employees are suitable or there is the need of female employees according to the nature of the job, whether to use autonomous contractors or hire employees to fill these needs, procuring and training the best employees and make sure that the standard of training is equal for male and female because they both have to do the work, make sure that they are high performers there is no relaxation on the basis of gender, dealing with execution issues, and guaranteed that your crew and management practices comply to various regulations (Ellis, 1998). Therefore if we analyze the situation from the industries and factories point of view, then this “gender discrimination” has direct concern with the human resource management. As human resource manger has to manage the human labor for the factory, and no doubt that human labor is the key factor that is counted for the progress of any factory. For example, general issues that are existed almost in every factory and are known as “sexual harassment” have solid importance, as sexually harassed workers in many cases leaves the workplaces usually if they are women. There are many cases of sexual harassment like incase of men, touching the legs and shoulders of women, without any reason goes to their room and bows upon them pretending that they have to pick the file that are on the back of them, and in case of women, wearing tight clothes, short dresses and talk with the male workers without any reason and showing them there bare legs and arms. A human resource manager has to overcome this type of situation because this demolishes the good-will of the factory or industry (Macklem, 2003). In the society it is usually observed that the duties are assigned on the basis of physical strength of the people and there is no importance usually given to the intellectuality of an individual, means men are preferred. This seems good for the jobs in which physical strength is used, whereas the jobs which only demands just sit on the chair and operate the computer required no physical strength or paper work in the admin and accounts branches in the factories only demands mental skills to tackle with the work. This provides the basis for the clash because in this way women are entirely neglected. Women are very disappointed because of the behavior that men have with the women, as it is depicted from the words of Clarie Sargent, Arizona senatorial candidate that, “I think its about time we voted for senators with breasts.  After all, weve been voting for boobs long enough” (Clarie Sargent). The main reason that leads to this situation is the conception of men that they are superior to the women in every aspect of life; this is depicted in the term “male chauvinism”. The term basically suggests that men are stronger and earner therefore he is superior to women, however the meaning and conditions of this idea is also changed with respect to the geographical situation like from country to country depending on the culture, religion and social behavior of the individuals. This develops the psyche of the men that they are superior either from one way or other (Francis J. & Todd E, 1997). This psyche remains dominant in the offices and factories, men think that they are superior to women; they consider every woman as their possession. We know that work can be done efficiently and effectively if all the workers have equal rights and equal opportunities to work, irrespective of their gender. This is the duty of the human recourse manager to create the atmosphere where both the genders can work to their limits without any interruption. Women are always used by men for their personal needs or other works, for example a Hollywood heroine Merlin Monro was killed by Kennedy brothers after they had used the actress for some political purposes and also for their personal pleasure (Gans, 1995). Now laws are made that both men and women have equal rights but these laws are just on paper, in actual society everyone has its own thought, even the laws or social policies making officials him/herself not abiding their own made laws and policies, then what they expect from others? From the human resource manger point of view, they sometime preferred to have female workers as compared to the male workers. The reason behind this argument is that the women are industrious they do not make cross talks on the commands, many times works on less pays as compared to males and one of the most important argument is, that female workers have more patience as compared to male workers therefore they can endure the furious behavior of the employer. In the remote areas especially in the Asian countries women are considered as financial obligation, and treat as a burden that the family has to throw away from their heads. Anyhow if they allow the women to go to the school in their child age then they proves beneficial for their homes and also for the society (Otten,1993). These all problems are raised due to the weakness of laws and weakness of law enforcement agencies. Even in this modern world, in which we said that we are living in the most literate era. Women are just used as a symbol for earning of money and this represents the mental illness of the whole society. For example, technique is highly used by the Jean Kilbourne, a social theorist. Basically Kilbourne made documentaries on the issues like alcohol and tobacco, advertising and the obsession with thinness, sex, lies and alcohol, media and the culture of violence, Killing Us Softly: advertising’s Images of Women, Still Killing Us Softly, and Killing Us Softly 3. In all these documentaries she uses the women as a symbol just to sell his product. Basically Jean Kilbourne’s initiating work to assist people to improve and simplified and made it well known the study of gender usage and representation in the advertisements. The Killing Us Softly and Still Killing Us Softly is the award winning films of Kilbourne. Her films have largely affected the majority of mature people and even the millions of school and college, it also based on the generation gap. Now it can be asked that why not men are used as advertising symbol, there might be infinite answers to this question but the point is that, even the women producers and directors used women as a symbol of advertisement (Burstein, 1989). But whatever the case may be, the conclusion is that women’s self respect is provoked, when they found themselves just serving as a showpiece for this unfaithful world. Now what required here is the proper law implementation in the society. So that no one again commits this felony and no gender discrimination exists. In last it is concluded that these are controversial issues and there is no magic stick that can put an end to gender discrimination and race discrimination. If someone not abides by the social policies and the laws then to implement these policies and laws by force is might not be the right way. There must be a technique that people’s nature is changed and they themselves willing to abide by these rules and policies. Therefore need is to educate the people and for this purpose coaching classes must be started from the school level to educate the children because minds of the students pick up everything very quickly and as they have no details in their minds to compare and drives their own results therefore they accept what the teacher teaches them. These classes must up to the college level so that this curse of race discrimination and gender discrimination is uprooted from the minds of people. Because this is very difficult to uproot this race and gender discrimination with the help of laws as to form the law and then implement it in the society or in the everyday lives of the people is even more difficult as compare to the commencement of coaching classes. 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