VIVE LA DIFFERENCE: Gender Differences and Public Policy

Since early civilisation, women have been suffering men’s discrimination, and although there are people who are too positive and think men and women have the same rights and opportunities, it is true to say that nowadays there is still an important gender difference between us.
Obviously, men and women are different, but the historical idea of men’s superiority has to end. There are a lot of biological differences between both genders. The main differences are not biological but cultural and social; in other words, these differences has been created by mankind. Therefore a public policy that deals with women’s discrimination is essential in solving this unfair situation and that also balances the scales.
Concretely, a clear example of a big disadvantage is being a superwoman, which means being a mother, a wife, a housewife, and having a full time job too. Why do women have this huge burden on us? Because traditionally men go to work and women take care of children and do the housework, but now women have been incorporated into the work-related world and nothing has changed in men’s roles. The same opportunities and remunerations have not been equalled, either.
Unfortunately, discrimination affects all aspects of life; sports, family, and an important one: publicity. It is frequent that advertisements on television are narrated by a woman, who explains the product’s qualities to spectators, but at the end of the commercial, a man’s voice concludes it with the most relevant arguments to give credibility and seriousness. This kind of strategy is used in most of the 85% of commercials, which studies have proved it makes us associate men with a self-confident figure and women as his subordinate.
Another focus of male chauvinism is the role of the couple when maternity arrives. In general womankind do not want to leave their jobs yet they also want to be with their babies, so a good solution would be more options to work part-time, have flexible timetables and for nursery schools to have part time care. It would be an interesting idea too, if fathers got involved from the first day of the baby’s care, giving them financial incentives for a period of time to share all the attentions for the baby.
It would be possible to continue with another examples of women’s discrimination, but the key problem is that society has assumed almost without question some roles that really determined womankind. It is such a strong influence, that women even adopt it, even nowadays. Some women still have in their minds ideas that are really difficult to exterminate. Society has to stop these prejudices because it doesn’t matter if this kind of behaviour has been developing itself for centuries, time is not a guarantee of doing things right.
Taking everything into account, it can be said that a better future is possible for women with the implication of every sector of society Although some men feel threatened to lose their privileges, in fact, nobody will lose anything, but it will be a guarantee for a better future. The debate is established and it will be possible other discriminations can be eliminated, like racial discrimination. The truth is that our society has evolution in modernity, fashion, and above all, in trivialities; but society still be prejudiced against other races, poor people, physically limited people, etc. Nobody is perfect and for this reason discrimination is always unfair.

Mark Osborne.

I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was grey.

I was leaving in a grey world. Sad. Empty. Without colours. Without bliss. In a grey world. I was working in a factory, in a grey, sad, empty factory. Every day, I did the same I had been done yesterday. Nothing special, any smile from a stranger, any smile from a friend, any friend, any smile. One day, a dream changed my world. I could hear my laughter, I could hear something different from the sounds I am used to; I saw myself when I was a child, when I was still happy. Suddenly my alarm clock woke me up, and I realised I was dreaming, and for a long time I had been happy, happy for the first time in too much time. Going to the factory, I saw the advertising slogan of our product Get Happy everywhere: “Get happy, get happy”, I was repeating to myself but I was not happy, I couldn’t. I arrived at the factory, but I could not think about something different, I was obsessed: I would like to live there, in the past, in my past. I was so obsessed that I tried to invent something, some object which allowed me to escape, to isolate my reality, and after losing my job, I finally got it. I was famous and very rich thanks to my extraordinary finding and I became the boss of the big empire of Get Happy, now the name changed to Bliss. I was the most powerful man in the city, I had billions of pounds, but this was not my objective. I turn myself as my boss, the capitalist system absorbed me and I lost again my opportunity to save myself.


This is not an invented story, in my view, is our world.

Literature in a globalized world

Nowadays nobody can deny that we already live in a globalized world and this fact has important consequences in all of life’s matters. Music, art, language, briefly the culture of a group of people is also influenced by this movement; needless to say literature is not an exception. “The Arts world” has an enormous power in order to connect different people, cultures, ideologies, political and social movements. However, living in a globalized world has a lot of disadvantages, too. The most common one is the imposition of one idea over the others, threatening them of disappearance. We neither can forget the interests of capitalism and the importance to spread a certain set of ideals.
Thanks to a global world, an explosion of different tendencies and points of view emerge, although it is said that there is an underlying aim to move people to the “correct” side, with press’ help, or manipulation, of course. Literature could be a wonderful skill of knowledge but also a skill of manipulation of ideologies. Fortunately, there are people who are critical in front of what they are reading, and that they are difficult to manipulate because they have their own ideas of life.
Fortunately, literature also allows us to imagine millions of different possible worlds, it allows to make us speculate and imagine. It makes us think of other philosophies, fantastic stories, of other cultures, everything that we want. And the most important, it could have an important repercussion in people’s behaviour around the world; although changing things for good or bad depend on us, not on literature.

Don't Worry be Happy!!

In the name of religion

It is true to say that the world has been experiencing an increase in extremist violence from the Muslim world against the western world. The reason for such extremist violence is because the Muslim world feels threatened by the western world, however not in terms of religion but in terms of democracy, human rights and freedom. Therefore, why do they use violence in the name of religion? Because in the Muslim world, religion is a vital pillar of society that it is linked with policy and the daily life of all citizens. To prevent violent behaviour it is necessary that they themselves change and develop a new democratic values.
In the first place, the western world has questioned some values in the Muslim community, and the Muslims feel they have been attacked. One example is the headscarf and the burka or burkha, being a theme of debate in some European countries. It is curious that the queen of Jordan and the queen of Morocco do not wear any headscarf. Another example is the female circumcision or purification, a cruel practice justified by Islam, that causes a lot of health problems and traumas. As it seems, Islam does not benefit women at all.
Secondly, those people who benefit from the privileges of Islam are not interested in changing the system because they would probably lose power and money thus, democracy is not a good idea for them. Moreover masculine society, who rules women, are not concerned about equality because they now have the power over their women, daughters, sisters and they must obey them.
As a result, the question is: who will change Muslim society? The same who prevent violent behaviour and develop democratic values. According to Ayaan Hirsi Alí, Islam needs a Voltaire.
On balance, extremist violence is not a matter of religion, but in their situation everything is a matter of religion, this is the problem. It is not necessary to establish a democracy like the Western world, they do not have to be like us, but they must change according to their culture and beliefs, however respecting the minorities and with the same values for all the population, without discrimination. If we "achieved" it, they can do it, too.

The Hunter

There was once a hunter who wanted to travel to Kammir. He was walking for many days until he saw the town very far. Before he arrived, he observed a path that led to a wonderful little hill. He felt so weary that he decided to rest under a leafy walnut.
Before he closed his eyes, he saw a big stone in front of him which had engraving a name and some numbers: "Abdul Kalib, 5 years, 8 months and 4 weeks." Nearby, it had another stone: "Yamir Tareg, 8 years, 9 months and 2 weeks." He realised that they weren't really stones, they were TOMBS: he was in a cemetery! He felt so tired that he hadn't seen where he was. He stood up and watched the other tombs: What had happened in this town? Why were all of them children? The hunter started to cry because he felt really sad.
The cemetery's trainer heard somebody to sob; he turned his face to look after who was there: an old man was crying seated on the grass. The trainer asked the hunter why he was crying, if he was disconsolate for some friend or family. The hunter asked him what had happened with all the Kammir's children, but before he finished, the trainer started to laughing because he wasn't the first person who asked for the early age of the dead.
All the inhabitants in Kammir had the same tradition: every happy time or special for them had to been written in a small notebook. When someone died, the addition of all the happy moments was written: Because for them, it was the only real-life time.

To improve your English...

To learn a foreign language it is necessary to study the grammar, pronunciation, to know how to express our ideas in writings, etc. But it is also important to know some typical expressions! I hope you enjoy and learn it!

You have more tale than a little street! = Tienes más cuento que calleja!
From lost to the river= De perdidos al río
Your plan has gone= Se te ha ido la olla
That if you want rice, Catherine! = Que si quieres arroz, Catalina!
Until then, Lucas!= Hasta luego Lucas!
You see less tha Joseph Milks!= Ves menos que Pepe Leches!
Go away to frie asparagous= Vete a freir espárragos!
Good of the Paraguay!= Guai del Paraguay!
You hallucinate little cucumbers!= Alucinas pepinillos!
...
I hope you have a good time "learning some typical expressions from England!"
hahahahahahahahahhahaha...

I only know that I don't know anything