Feminist Critique of Classical Criminology

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

Explaining the Mysteries in the Story “Lucky” by Viet Dinh Essay

Viet Dinh’s short story is about the change in relationship between a man and his Aunt and Uncle. Jae, the main character in the story used to like his Uncle Sung and Aunt Kwi better than his own parents but suddenly had a change of heart because of an incident he experienced. Jae had been working in his Uncle Sung’s store when it was robbed one day. The robber put a gun against Jae’s temple and demanded for cash. Although the robber had acquired the contents of the cash register, he also demanded Uncle Sung’s wallet, threatening to put a hole in Jae’s head. While Jae had been terrified with his current situation, fearing for his life, Uncle Sung acted as if his nephew were not in a life-threatening situation, refusing to surrender his wallet. In the end, Uncle Sung bribed Jae $20 for his silence. Despite of his Uncle Sung’s request for him to keep silent, Jae told his Aunt Kwi what really happened during the incident hoping to get the sympathy of his Aunt. To Jae’s dismay, Aunt Kwi also requested for his silence. Jae was only 12 years old during the incident. While Jae’s change of heart in his relationship with his Aunt and Uncle is understandable, there are some mysteries in the story. First, why would Uncle Sung and Aunt Kwi not want Jae to tell others what really happened during the robbery? What would Uncle Sung accomplish or get by not telling the truth or by reinventing the story? Certainly, Uncle Sung has nothing to do with the whole incident and he was a victim as much as Jae was. Second, why were Uncle Sung and Aunt Kwi still mad at Jae 16 years after the robbery incident when it did not really did them any harm whether Jae told the real story or not? As a matter of fact, they were the ones who should be sorry for what they did to their nephew. Third, Jae’s feelings towards his Aunt and Uncle were not really resolved. The answers to these questions were not very clear from the story but I will attempt to find the logic behind such actions by the characters. The answer to the first mystery may be found in Uncle Sung’s sense of adventure. At the beginning of the story, Jae, who was also the narrator, related how Uncle Sung died. Uncle Sung, with all his profit from his businesses, was able to buy different cars, all of them built for speed. Uncle Sung died while driving one of these sports cars, where he apparently lost control, probably racing on a freeway. Jae held that he always felt danger around Uncle Sung. Uncle Sung’s sense of adventure was apparent during the robbery by keeping his cool despite the presence of life-threatening danger that he bragged about it in a get-together after the robbery. He even rebuked Jae for acting cowardly during the whole incident while leaving out the important part that Jea had been held captive. The first mystery could also be solved by Uncle Sung’s greediness with money. It was apparent during the robbery incident that money was more important for Uncle Sung than the lives of his workers, especially of Jae who was held captive by the robber, imposing a real threat to his life. Although, the robber was demanding for his wallet, Uncle Sung acted as if he did not care about Jae’s life hanging in the balance. He told the robber that he did not have his wallet at the moment although he had it in his pocket all along. Although Jae ended up keeping his life, Uncle Sung refused to give the robber his wallet in exchange for Jae’s life. That Uncle Sung held his money more important than anything else is shown also by his attitude regarding money. By bribing Jae, he hoped to buy Jae’s silence, and by giving a large sum of money during Jae’s wedding, he hoped to appease Jae. Uncle Sung regarded money so much as to think he could buy people with it, as through the manifestation of their silence or approval. Note that this attitude of Uncle Sung works in tandem with his being adventurous to solve the first mystery. By asking Jae to be silent, Uncle Sung hoped the approval of those who heard his version of the incident, that he would gain their admiration by keeping his cool despite the terrifying incident. To fully accomplish this, however, it was important for him to leave out the part that he put Jae’s life on the line, which also saved him hard-earned money in his wallet. Having found the answer to the first mystery, the solution to the second becomes apparent. Uncle Sung and Aunt Kwi were still mad at Jae because they held honor an important aspect, even though this honor was not rightfully earned. Knowing the real story of what happened during the robbery and his apparent refusal to keep silent, Jae represented a threat to Uncle Sung’s honor. Although it was really not clear whether or not Jae told the story to others, he at least told it to his parents, as could be shown with their understanding why Jae would not want to see or be associated with his Uncle Sung. In fact, the whole incident was the reason why a strain in the extended family’s relationship developed. Uncle Sung and Aunt Kwi were still mad at Jae because, after all that they had done for their nephew, he still refused to keep silent threatening the reputation his uncle worked hard to achieve. They held that Jae’s refusal to keep silent is a sign of not only his disrespect for them but also of his ingratitude towards what they did for him and his family. Again, it displayed Uncle Sung’s attitude towards money, that he expected Jae and his family not to cross him by helping Jae’s family on their business. Unfortunately, the third mystery could not really be solved from the solutions to the first two mysteries. Although Jae agreed to come to his uncle’s wake, it is uncertain whether or not he had already forgiven his uncle for putting him in danger and asking him to keep silent. Maybe he agreed to come, just as he was urged to agree to invite Uncle Sung in his wedding, because of his parents’ urging that Uncle Sung is still a family member. However, in his uncle’s wake, Jae told his Aunt Kwi that his uncle looked so peaceful. It is unclear whether this was a sign of him making peace with his uncle or not and it does not help knowing the reaction of his aunt. Aunt Kwi, after hearing what Jae has to say, pushed him away saying that he was ungrateful. There are two plausible solutions why Aunt Kwi may have acted the way she did. First, she still may hold a grudge against Jae for being defiant towards Uncle Sung. There is however a flaw in this solution. It was apparent that Aunt Kwi was preventing for the relationship between her husband and Jae from getting any worse through her action during Jae’s wedding, wherein she tried to put her husband at ease while Uncle Sung was criticizing Jae in front of other people. By preventing her husband from saying any further that may ruin Jae’s reputation, despite of the fact that she disapproved of what Jae had decided to go against their wishes, then it is possible that Aunt Kwi no longer hold any grudge against Jae. The second plausible solution why Aunt Kwi acted towards Jae the way she did during the wake was that she may have found no sincerity in Jae. Remember that Jae was only urged by his parents to come to the funeral and it is all too possible that Jae went only because of this and not because of his wanting to pay respect and tribute for his uncle. Looking into his eyes, Aunt Kwi may have concluded of this fact and so pushed Jae away while stating her dismay towards him and his being ungrateful, that after all the years and after his uncle has already passed away, Jae was still unforgiving. Saying this, the solution to the third mystery may be that Jae still has not forgiven Uncle Sung. This could also be established by the fact that Jae does not approve of his uncle’s adventurism, as is apparent by stating that he always knew Uncle Sung would die in the freeway and that he always felt danger around him. Works Cited Dinh, Viet. â€Å"Lucky. † Zeotrope All-Story vol. 8, no 2, 2008.

Agreed Ways Of Working Essay

Agreed ways of working is referring to staff following the policies and procedures, adhering to each individuals care plans accordingly, as well as any risk assessments in place as reading and following any code of conduct. An agreed way of working is performing to the standard that was agreed at the beginning of the employee’s contract to work effectively in helping to protect and care for vulnerable people. Following the policies and procedures or the agreed ways of working set out how your employer requires you to work. They incorporate various pieces of legislation as well as best practice. They are there to benefit and protect you and the service user’s you support and your employer. They enable you to provide a good quality service working within the legal framework and most importantly aim to keep you and your service user safe from danger and harm. The importance of a full and up to date agreed way of working starts right at the beginning before anyone is put into a social care environment. Having a job description and reading it fully, as well as understanding it means that you agree to follow the agreed way of working by not only performing to the policies and procedures standards. It’s important to keep up to date care plan’s, risk assessments and company policies and procedures which is important you read them and sign them to let your company know that you understand what are working towards. Without up to date information the safety and comfort of your client are put at risk, this is why it’s important to put into place agreed ways of working as if this was not in place it would be impossible to know what is expected for the individual and even harder to care for more vulnerable service users. It is a legal requirement as you have a duty to keep your service user safe by following policies and procedures and working within your job role. Importance of having an up to date agreed ways of working as there may be changes to some policies and procedures within the law. Your company may have to implement these changes to help protect the more vulnerable people we care for. It is important for care workers to follow your policies and procedures and guidelines as by doing this you will get a better understanding of what your company is expecting of your work and how we can support and provide appropriate care for all of your clients. By reading and understanding your job you will now your job description and your limits as this will help you do your job effectively.

Leadership Styles Niccolo Machiavelli And Dr. Martin...

There are varieties of leadership styles. Niccolo Machiavelli and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, are opposites in their characterization of what makes a good leader. One justifies that the â€Å"end justifies the means† while the other directs us that â€Å"it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends† (King). I agree with the latter of the two believing that the first one burns bridges, while the latter builds them. However, both leadership styles exist today. Machiavelli reflected, â€Å"How one lives is so far distant from how one ought to live, that he who neglects what is done for what ought to be done, sooner affects his ruin than his preservation† (Machiavelli). Machiavelli indicated that the Ferdinand of Aragon was a great leader who†¦show more content†¦However, what are constant through these changes, is overlooking the human element. This consulting firm recognized this. I do believe this to be an accurate representation of the environment since going through numerous events. I recall sitting down in the workshop last Thursday. The company’s tent cards boasted a quote from Niccolo Machiavelli. It read, â€Å"There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things, because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new† (Machiavelli). The owner of the firm took an unfortunate turn as he generalized the entire group, admonishing us all that we chose this life. What he referred to was the life of a consultant. This consulting assignment was reorganizing and transitioning individuals off permanently off the project. What he failed to understand was that over half of the group did not make this choose willingly. Many of the companies we came from laid the group off due to their economic environment. It was as if he was a f ather admonishing his children. He asked for questions, where he would challenge individuals to verbal humiliation to express his point. At one time, he required to see the degree of an individual, not knowing she was had a Ph.D. Unfortunately, many of us becameShow MoreRelatedStephen P. Robbins Timothy A. Judge (2011) Organizational Behaviour 15th Edition New Jersey: Prentice Hall393164 Words   |  1573 PagesValues 131 Perception and Individual Decision Making 165 Motivation Concepts 201 Motivation: From Concepts to Applications 239 3 The Group 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Foundations of Group Behavior 271 Understanding Work Teams 307 Communication 335 Leadership 367 Power and Politics 411 Conflict and Negotiation 445 Foundations of Organization Structure 479 v vi BRIEF CONTENTS 4 The Organization System 16 Organizational Culture 511 17 Human Resource Policies and Practices 543 18 Organizational