Sexism, Prejudice, and Racism in Lees To Kill A Mockingbird

Throughout the book To Kill A Mockingbird Lee discusses the effects of ignorance and the toll it takes on people such as Tom Robinson, Boo Radley, Scout herself, and many more. Through her examples of sexism, prejudice, and racism, from the populist of poverty stricken Southerners, she shows the readers the injustice of many. The victims of ignorance are the ‘mockingbirds’ of the story. A good example of this injustice is the trial of Tom Robinson, who is falsely accused of raping a white girl and is found guilty. The book is from the point of view Scout, a child, who has an advantage over most kids due to her having a lawyer as a dad, to see the other side of the story. Her father tells her in the story, â€Å"you never really know a man until†¦show more content†¦The missionary ladies, like Aunt Alexandra, in general abide by the same rules of politeness. They believed on the surface fragrant women were to â€Å"rock slowly, fan gently, and drink cool waterà ¢â‚¬  (Johnson). To them women were to act as a clique, and if someone did not act a certain way they would be looked down upon for being different and cast as an exile. They also pride themselves on family values whereas at the heart of things have no family values at all, and they use it as a way to segregate people into groups (Johnson). Alexandra maintains the stereotypical concept of what is the white southern feministic racist. All of the attributes sort of melt together and perpetuate one another. She retains her feministic way by getting Calpurnia, the black helper, to do all of her physical labor for her. An example of this behavior is present in the scene in which Alexandra arrives at the Finches’ house and commands Calpurnia to take her suitcase and her belongings upstairs so she can retain the feministic southern air about her. The prejudice attitude she has is also being passed down through the family. In one scene Scout beats up her annoying cousin for calling Atticus a â€Å"nigger-lover†. The only thing Alexandra does is getting on to scout for fighting and telling her it is unladylike to fight (Richards). Another example of sexism in the storyShow MoreRelatedRacism, Sexism and Socioeconomic Prejudice in Harper Lees To Kill a Mockingbird828 Words   |  4 Pagesother negative things† (2006 Anti-Defamation League). Also, prejudice in â€Å"children may be reinforced by listening to derogatory ethnic jokes, especially when others laugh along or think theyre cool†. Lastly, children may simply imitate the prejudices of their older family members and popular friends. Prejudice is to pre- judge. â€Å"Prejudice is a baseless and usually negative attitude toward members of a group. Common features of prejudice include negative feelings, stereotyped beliefs and a tendencyRead MoreSummary Of Kill A Mockingbird 1645 Words   |  7 PagesTo Kill a Mockingbird is told from the view of Jean Louise (Scout) Finch. It is through her we are introduced to the social injustice, racial prejudice and problems rife in Maycomb’s society. Through Lee’s use of characters, object s and events we see how these issues are permeated into society, and I will be delving into these and explaining how they present the town of Maycomb. In chapter 2 Lee presents the town of Maycomb to be poverty stricken, emphasised through the characterisation of WalterRead MoreKill A Mockingbird By Harper Lee1695 Words   |  7 PagesIn To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee presents as a ‘tired old town’ where the inhabitants have ‘nowhere to go’ it is set in the 1930s when prejudices and racism were at a peak. Lee uses Maycomb town to highlight prejudices, racism, poverty and social inequality. In chapter 2 Lee presents the town of Maycomb to be poverty stricken, emphasised through the characterisation of Walter Cunningham. When it is discovered he has no lunch on the first day of school, Scout tries to explain the situation to MissRead MoreThe Scottsboro Trials And Racial Prejudice1707 Words   |  7 PagesHarper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird includes The Scottsboro Trials. Both stories uprise in the 1930s, displaying a white supremacist mindset, which two cases fall into the conviction of rape. The Scottsboro case started on a train to northern Alabama to southern Tennessee, when nine African American boys, ranging in ages from 13-19, allegedly raped two â€Å"innocent† Caucasian women, Victoria Price and Ruby Bates. Racial discrimination uprises in American judicial system when shown in To Kill a MockingbirdRead MoreExamples of Prejudice in To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee836 Words   |  3 Pages To Kill A Mockingbird Harper Lee’s book, To Kill A Mockingbird takes place in the difficult times of the Great Depression in the early 1930’s. The novel surrounds the life of a young girl named Scout Finch, along with her brother Jem, and their friend, Dill. Who are forced at a young age to watch the people of their small town of Maycomb not only receive, but also give prejudice to numerous, harmless people. Whether it be Boo Radley, a shut in who falls victim to the town’s gossip, even thoughRead MoreEssay about Maycomb Society in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee791 Words   |  4 PagesDiscuss Harper Lee’s Presentation of Maycomb Society in to Kill a Mockingbird Maycomb is described as a â€Å"tired old town† where the inhabitants had â€Å"nowhere to go†. Maycomb is very similar to any small southern town in the 1930’s, sexism, racism and other prejudices are at a peak, and old traditions are carried out regularly. To Kill a Mockingbird revolves solely around family, community and society, the focus point of the book, the rape trial, would not have occurred if society had notRead MorePrejudice By John Steinbeck And The Great Depression2000 Words   |  8 PagesIn both Lee and Steinbeck’s novels, prejudice is a key theme portrayed in a variety of different forms and is used as a way to degrade and discriminate the innocent characters. Lee’s title quotation ‘mockingbird’ represents those who are victims of prejudice, which is a large amount of characters as the novel is set in 1930 America, where the only properly respected people were white, mentally stable males. This is also shown by Steinbeck who uses the hopelessness of the Great Depression to put acrossRead MoreDiscrimination Is A Dominant Theme Within The Film Of Kill A Mockingbird By Harper Lee1342 Words   |  6 Pagesclass, and gender; throughout American history, the discrimination of these groups was commonplace and a widely accepted behaviour. The reality of these are told through Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird which depicts th e childhood of a girl in 1930’s America who experiences first hand discrimination and observes prejudice towards others in her community. Within the town, residents generate morbid stories about a local simply because he is reclusive. The narrator, six-year-old Scout Finch becomesRead MoreAnalysis Of Of Mice And Men 1959 Words   |  8 Pagesthe novels, prejudice, in all its forms, is a key theme throughout; especially in the relation to the destruction of the innocent. In Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, the innocent characters (or ‘mockingbirds’) are generally characters who are misunderstood by the harsh society in 1930s America. This ranges from a lack of understanding or knowledge about mental illness in the case of Boo Radley, to pure racism in the case of Tom Robinson. In Of Mice And Men, there is a bigger focus on sexism, but againRead MoreTo Kill a Mocking Bird Reflection2428 Words   |  10 PagesStatement on area of study Prejudice Prejudice; what a strong and powerful word that is. When prejudice first comes to mind I first think of, judgment, bias, stereotyping, unfairness and intolerance. Its much more than that its an evil discriminator act of power. A preconceived opinion of someone de to physical characteristics that cant be helped or changed. There are many different forms of prejudice but the four main ones to me are as follows. Sexism (the unfair prejudice against someone because

Human resource management (HRM) Free Essays

Human resource management is the function within an organisation that deals with recruitment, management and communication. The size of an organisation’s HRM is dependent on the general size of the organisation a small businesses may for example only have one member of staff responsible for HRM where as a multinational company would have a huge HRM department in its head office. This assignment will look at how much HRM is responsible for improving organisational performance. We will write a custom essay sample on Human resource management (HRM) or any similar topic only for you Order Now Human resource management is clearly an integral part of any business and without it a business may not achieve a greater level of success as it would have by employing a successful human resource management operation. By employing staff to conduct human resource activities within the business it then allows the other areas of the business to focus on their individual job roles Before looking at how HRM affects performance it’s important to note what organisational performance is. Organizational Performance† is a broad construct which captures what agencies do, produce, and accomplish for the various constituencies with which they interact. There are six dimensions in which for measuring organisational performance these are Productivity Employee satisfaction Client satisfaction Client impact Service quality Resource acquisition and domain maintenance Organisations will always strive to achieve the best structure and performance possible. In order to maximise the effectiveness of this a good use of HRM will be required. The way HRM is best used to improve organisational performance is by implementing a good strategy. The strategy in relation to HRM can be split into two terms strategy as a plan and strategy as a system of management. Strategy as a plan is when an organisation uses there strategy as a way of interacting with the competitive environment. It’s derived from the term â€Å"military strategy† and what it means is that an organisation will use this as their corporate strategy and will expect all employees to adhere to it strictly. This type of strategy is usually constructed by those at the highest levels of an organisation i. e. the senior executives’ and have a significant impact on the way the organisation is run. As mentioned earlier the second type of strategy is strategy as a system of management this strategy unlike strategy as a plan is less formal and regulated. The main difference between the two strategies is the first strategy focuses on using it strategy as a set way of running the organisation where as this one offers guidelines and offers principles in the way the company should be run. An organisation who adopts a strong strategic plan will benefit from having a corporate direction e. g. they will have an idea where they want to be in the long term(e. g. 5-20 years )having a good strategy is the foundation for both deciding how to run HRM as well as how the actual organisation should be run. The different types of strategy all fall into the strategic fit. This is supported by Hogue who when examining the relationship between HRM and Performance in the UK, hotel industry, Hogue (1999) found that â€Å"The relationship between HRM and performance is dependent upon the business strategy the hotel is pursuing: that hotels pursuing an HRM approach coupled with a Quality focus within their business strategy perform best† In order to fully understand how the link between HRM and performance is you have to understand the key concepts of HR theory for these strategies to be effective (Wood 1999) stated there are four key points organisation should take on board before trying to adopt a particular HR strategy these are. Firstly different human resource practices should be coherent and complement each other. Secondly, there should be a fit between the coherent sets of human resource practices and other systems within the organisation. Thirdly, the human resource systems should be in line with the business or competitive strategy of the organisation. And fourthly, the human resource system adopted by the organisation should be compatible with its operating environment (Wood. 1999) Patterson et al were supporters of HRM to improving performance and believed that HRM was an imperative tool for improving organisation performance they elieved that HRM could improve company performance by Increasing employee skills and abilities Promoting positive attitudes and increasing motivation Providing employees with expanded responsibilities so that they can make full use of their skills and abilities† It’s not enough to just mention that a good HRM strategy will help improve an organisations performance it’s important to understand the ways in which a successful HRM strategy can improve performance. In particular Pfeffer (1998) work has listed the 7 best practices for HRM Pfeffer argued that with these seven practices organisations would see a rapid improvement in their HRM. These 7 practices are Employment Security, Selective Hiring, Extensive Training, Sharing Information, Self Managed Teams, High Pay – Company Performance Reduction of Status Differentials. Having good employee job security would encourage employees to be more motivated as a workforce who feel secure are more likely to feel connected to the company and thus work harder to improve it. Selective hiring is pretty much self explanatory as all it means is that to have improvements in organisation performance it’s about selecting the right staff for the right job. Extensive training and sharing of information are important also because extensive training helps make sure that employees are in the best possible position when it comes to doing a job and for an operation to run smoothly and streamline its important that organisations share information internally to help co-ordinate activities. Self managed teams encourage middle managers to have more authority and then feel more motivated its encourages more independence however organisations should be aware that giving individual manager more independence risks creating more individualism within the different segments of the organisation and a company that HR strategy is to maintain a strict overall way of running all segments/branches will not want to encourage managers to have too much freedom. High pay is essential for improving performance as it stated in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, employees need to feels that they are being rewarded suitably for the work they have done In order to assess the extent in which HRM, in particular strategy is linked in organisational performance it’s important to understand the different research and theoretical perspectives behind it as well as the reasons for a company needing a certain type of strategy. As would be expected when implementing a strategy to improve the performance of an organisation. A business would have to look at the environment it is in before deciding its strategy as can be imagined. A company in very predictable environment such as heinz ketchup would probably have in place a very strict and fixed strategy as to how to manage their organisation. This is because there are not many competitors and the company has been around for decades and so is the market leader this has meant that the organisation has not had to change its strategy. Where as an organisation in less secure market would have to for example a car company, would have to continuously adapt its strategies to the needs of the environment as to be able to reach its target market as well as distancing itself from its competitors. This is known as the strategy continuum as shown in figure 1. 1.  This in particular is highly important to improving organisational performance as it offers a clear explanation as to what a company should do in its environment. It’s a very simple explanation which can be used to describe to people at all levels of an organisation why a certain strategy is in place. The main flaw to the continuum is however although it shows what an organisation should do in a particular environment it does not actually explain how to determine what kind of environment the organisation is in. How to cite Human resource management (HRM), Essay examples

Academic Essay for Poverty and Unemployment- myassignmenthelp

Question: Writeabout theAcademic Essay for Poverty and Unemployment. Answer: Introduction It is of no question that globalization has fast become a very positive factor behind the advancement of countries who are now having the option of boasting about access to diverse markets and export of cheap goods. Globalization has been beneficial for both local businesses and the big corporations. However, the situation has not been similar for the blue and white collar workforce, leading to the countries constant deindustrialization. Globalization in itself is a convoluted topic and it is extremely important that the profits and losses are in the same way calculated for the understanding of the expanse of impact that has on the biosphere and the human beings living in it. Discussion People who are staunchly supporting globalization in all its aspects opine that it contains the possibilities of building this world into an advanced place for the sustenance of life and provisions for solutions of some deep-seated issues like poverty and unemployment. Free trade is allegedly there for the reduction of barriers such as subsidies, tariffs, value added taxes and some other state barriers. However, that is not the real scenario. Proponents are of the opinion that globalization is representative of free trade supporting international economic growth, lowering prices for consumers, generating jobs and building competitive advantage for companies. The driving price factors down by means of rivalry between nations is of no use as countries manipulate their currency for acquiring price advantage. Supporters are of belief that globalization and egalitarianism necessitates going together. There is a requirement of pure trade with no expansionist designs. Because of globalizati on, there is now an existence of global markets for customers and companies who have admission for the products of diverse countries. Gradually a world power is getting shaped rather than sorted power sectors. Merging is happening in politics and decisions are getting taken for the best of the people all over the world. Incursion of information amongst two countries with nothing shared is getting increased day by day. This has been helpful in the cultural intermingling of countries and helping in the people learning more regarding different cultures. This situation sequentially has assisted in bringing social directness and progressive tolerance levels for one another and other people too. Nevertheless, the most common issues that people have against globalization is that day by day the rich are becoming more richer and the poor are getting more poor. The largest issue for any developed country is that they are facing loss in occupations and getting shifted to low cost countries. Th e multinational companies get the choice of misusing tax havens in different other companies for dodging the paying of taxes. Conclusion On a concluding note, it can be said that globalization has been acting as an overpowering storm from the beginning itself. It can neither be controlled nor stopped. However, there are different strategies and policies that are existent for making the situation equitable. Trade laws can get enforced and avoidance can be carried out in giving competitors the winning tools for global wars.