Looking At The Impacts Of Fashion On Society Cultural Studies Essay

Looking At The Impacts Of Fashion On Society Cultural Studies Essay The 1950s were a fascinating time in the United States that left an impressive mark on our society. Fashion during this unforgettable time was extremely imaginative and expressive, and overtime evolved into iconic images that are repeatedly replicated in fashion today. The now famous styles are historical icons in our culture that are recognized by the majority of Americans. The fashion of the 1950s is very memorable to our society because it was, rebellious, captivating, and unique. The 1950s are often thought of as a time with conservative families who had well-behaved children that listened to their parents rules, and lived in cookie cutter suburban communities. While for many this was true, there was also a great deal of teenage rebellion that came out of this era. As the 1950s opened, Americas adolescents were basically a conservative, unrebellious lot.  [1]  At the very start of the 1950s teens idolized the same older generation figures as their parents, so factors for a rebellion were simply not there. However, in the early part of the decade younger idols arose and new cultural factors began the start of a teenage rebellion and, By the late fifties Americas teenagers had acquired a distinct subculture of their own. They had their own money, music, movies, television shows, idols, clothing, and slang.  [2]  They had found their own fashions and they centered on casual dress, instead of the upright fashion of older generations. This rebellion was ea sily expressed through exciting new fashions that had never been seen before. These styles became a vital aspect to the 1950s era that are now recognized and imitated in the fashion world today. The fresh clothing ideas for teenage girls included, rolled-up jeans, full dresses with crinolines, skirts paired with sweaters, casual blouses, blazers, tube dresses, sack dresses, two-piece bathing suits, and brown and white saddle shoes. High school boys were regularly seen in sport shirts, denim jeans with rolled-up cuffs, baggy pegged pants, pleated rouge trousers with a white side stripe, V-neck sweaters, slacks with back buckles, button-down striped shirts, blazers, and loafers.  [3]  Favorite color pallets and designs incorporated into these styles were polka dots, dramatic bright colors, and pale pastel colors.  [4]  One of the up-and-coming teen idols was Rebel without a Cause, James Dean, whose iconic look consisted of a white tee shirt and sport jacket.  [5]  This rol e model led to the same age group of boys showing their own rebellion through a tough attitude, black leather jackets, jeans, and tee shirts with rolled sleeves to hold cigarette packs. This highly rebellious crowd became known as Greasers, a very recognizable subculture. To continue, style in the 1950s was captivating for many Americans of the time. While the style of the rebellious teens is sometimes the spotlight of Fifties fashion, older generations also embraced new fashion ideas. Americans in the 1950s were caught up in many popular fads. Perhaps to take their minds off the looming threats to Americas Securityà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ã‚  [6]  In 1950 popular fashion designer Christian Dior created designs for his concept of the New Look, and it quickly became the epitome of fashion for women at the time. His model emphasized an hourglass shape (still popular today), skintight tailoring, narrow waist, and a full flared skirt. Along with this latest fashion ideal, it was also popular for Fifties women to wear fashion staples such as, stiletto heels, bright red lipstick, hats, and gloves. In the 1950s it was common for women to be housewives, but many were also working outside the home, Although womens roles were changing, the most popular fashions of the 1950s emphasized womens femininity and sexuality.  [7]  Overall, for women a look of professional feminism was portrayed, but with young girls a more fun look was trendy. The most memorable of these looks was that of the bobby soxers, consisting of two-tone saddle shoes, ankle socks, white shirts, soft sweaters, neck scarves, and poodle skirts. Poodle skirts are a staple of the 1950s that were frequently worn to Sock Hops and were, full circular skirts decorated with felt patches of well-coiffed French poodles and were the fashion rage for teen girls.  [8]  A sense of style was even welcomed by young children because of the popularity of Western television shows; therefore, children would often mimic the look of their favorite cowboy.  [9]  Even male fashion began to take a more attractive and less stiff turn, clothing such as smart suits, sports jackets, and trousers with permenant creases.  [10]  In conclusion, the 1950s appealing fashion gave women a look of sophi sticated feminism, gave men a look of relaxed professionalism, and gave younger generations a look of carefree fun. Finally, it is easy to observe that the clothing styles and fashions of the generations were unique to the time, but conformity was also an accepted idea at the time as well. Even the most self-expressive group desired to fit it, Teenagers were also very conformist: They were very concerned about what their friends thought of their dress, behavior, and ideas, and they tried very hard to be part of the group and not be labeled an oddball or individualist.  [11]  It could be surmised that the reason for this need to be the same through fashion may have stemmed from the emerging suburban lifestyle in the United States, which was all about conformity through appearance. Therefore, fashion during the 1950s was most often not about being an individual with your own personal style, it was based off of being apart of a universal style. The fashions were so highly received that they could be seen on almost everyone of the decade. For example, powerful businessmen of the time sported the i nfamous gray flannel suits, which were paired with narrow brimmed hats.  [12]  As a result of televisions invading homes, and movie theaters growing, admiration of stars like Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn, added to the aspiration to achieve a trendy look of glamorous sophistication and elegance.  [13]  Of course, there were exceptions to the conformity ideal, and these groups were known as The Beatniks. These were citizens who detested conformity and separated themselves from the popular fashions by wearing black turtleneck sweaters, blue jeans, and sandals for men and black leotards and short skirts for women. Ironically, the style that they developed to protest being the same became a conformity in itself.  [14]  To sum up, even though 1950s fashion could be vastly conformist, the styles themselves were definitely unique and something that the country had never experienced, but quickly loved and would continue to adore for generations to come. In conclusion, the fashion of the 1950s was filled with blends of trendy, relaxed, fun, elegant, and sophisticated styles. The original fashions of this beloved decade are still treasured in society today, and these fashions are often still imitated in various styles in the fashion world. Because 1950s fashion was rebellious, captivating, and unique, it has evolved into a memorable part of history that will always have an element of current fashions for years to come. The Fifties style sums up everything that is flattering, does not appear to be a contrived fashion statement, and shows classic good style.  [15]  

Female Foeticide in India Essay

Save the girl child, or Beti Bachao, Beti Bachao Andolan in Urdu, is a campaign in India to end the gender-selective abortion of female fetuses, which has skewed the population towards a significant under-representation of girls in some Indian states. The â€Å"Beti Bachao† campaign is supported by human rights groups, non-governmental organizations, and state and local government in India. Contents [hide] 1 Female foeticide 2 Beti Bachao awareness campaign 3 National support 4 Effectiveness 5 See also 6 References Female foeticide[edit] Further information: Female foeticide in India Sex-selective abortion, or female foeticide, has led to a sharp drop in the ratio of girls born in contrast to boy infants in some states in India. Ultrasound technology has made it possible for pregnant women and their families to learn the gender of a foetus early in a pregnancy. Discrimination against girl infants, for several reasons, has combined with the technology to result in a rise in abortions of fetuses identified as female during ultrasound testing. The trend was first noticed when results of the 1991 national census were released, and it was confirmed to be a worsening problem when results of the 2001 national census were released. The reduction in the female population of certain Indian states continues to worsen, as results of the 2011 national census have shown. It has been observed that the trend is most pronounced in relatively prosperous regions of India. [1] The dowry system in India is often blamed; the expectation that a large dowry must be provided for daughters in order for them to marry is frequently cited as a major cause for the problem. 2] Pressure for parents to provide large dowries for their daughters is most intense in prosperous states where high standards of living, and modern consumerism, are more prevalent in Indian society. Rates of female foeticide in Madhya Pradesh are increasing; the rate of live births was 932 girls per 1000 boys in 2001, which dropped to 912 by 2011. It is expected that if this trend continues, by 2021 the number of girls will drop below 900 per 1000 boys. 3] Beti Bachao awareness campaign[edit] Beti Bachao activities include large rallies, poster campaigns, wall paintings, billboards, and television commercials and short animations and video films. Celebrities such as video director Jagmeet Bal, and Bollywood actress Priyanka Chopra, have become involved in â€Å"Save the girl child† initiatives. National support[edit] The Beti Bachao campaign is supported by numerous medical organizations in India, including the Indian Medical Association. 4] Government support at the state level has provided funding for Beti Bachao publicity activities in particular. The expenditures related to the campaign have been a source of political controversy in Madhya Pradesh, which launched its official Beti Bachao Abhiyan campaign in 2012. [5] Effectiveness[edit] The campaign has reported some success in parts of India. In 2009, it was reported that in Gujarat, rates of female births increased from 802 to 882 for every 1000 male births. Beti Bachao activities were credited with this improvement. [6]

How Technology Helps in Communication Essay

If we talk about what are the tools that we can use in developing communication, than I say that â€Å"technology is one of the tools that we can use for communication†. Worlds are globalizing, we cannot depend on only one medium. We are lucky to have science gift that is technology. Communicating involves giving, receiving and making sense of information. Children do this by using non-verbal means of communication, talking, listening, thinking, and understanding. In time, the skills of reading and writing enrich this experience. Communicating is a two-way activity; as well as learning to share their experiences with others children also learn to interpret what others are sharing with them. They communicate in many different ways including facial expressions, gestures, body movements, sounds, language and for some children, through assistive technology. Children’s language is more than words, phrases and sentences. It includes art, Braille, dance, drama, music, poetry, pictures, sculpture, signing, and stories. While most children eventually master spoken and written language as their key means of communicating, they continue to speak through their gestures, body movements and expressions to a greater or lesser extent. Some children with special educational needs may need additional and consistent support throughout their lifetime to practise, learn and perfect the art of non-verbal communication. Language technologies are information technologies that are specialized for dealing with the most complex information medium in our world: human language. Therefore these technologies are also often subsumed under the term Human Language Technology. Human language occurs in spoken and written form. Whereas speech is the oldest and most natural mode of language communication, complex information and most of human knowledge is maintained and transmitted in written texts. Speech and text technologies process or produce language in these two modes of realization. But language also has aspects that are shared between speech and text such as dictionaries, most of grammar and the meaning of sentences. Thus large parts of language technology cannot be subsumed under speech and text technologies. Among those are technologies that link language to knowledge. We do not know how language, knowledge and thought are represented in the human brain. Nevertheless, language technology had to create formal representation systems that link language to concepts and tasks in the real world. This provides the interface to the fast growing area of knowledge technologies. In our communication we mix language with other modes of communication and other information media. We combine speech with gesture and facial expressions. Digital texts are combined with pictures and sounds. Movies may contain language and spoken and written form. Thus speech and text technologies overlap and interact with many other technologies that facilitate processing of multimodal communication and multimedia documents. Although existing LT systems are far from achieving human ability, they have numerous possible applications. The goal is to create software products that have some knowledge of human language. Such products are going to change our lives. They are urgently needed for improving human-machine interaction since the main obstacle in the interaction between human and computer is merely a communication problem. Today’s computers do not understand our language but computer languages are difficult to learn and do not correspond to the structure of human thought. Even if the language the machine understands and its domain of discourse are very restricted, the use of human language can increase the acceptance of software and the productivity of its users. Language technologies helps in developing listening and speaking skills Being a good communicator is crucial to children’s development. The adult encourages children to communicate by listening to them, interpreting what they are saying, responding to them, and by modeling good communication. The adult also provides an environment which motivates children to interact with each other and the adult, and with the objects and places in it. By capturing children’s interest and curiosity and challenging them to explore and to share their adventures and discoveries with others, this environment can fuel their thinking, imagination and creativity, thereby enriching communication. These early experiences support children in becoming confident and competent communicators Natural language interfaces enable the user to communicate with the computer in French, English, German, or another human language. Some applications of such interfaces are database queries, information retrieval from texts, so-called expert systems, and robot control. Current advances in the recognition of spoken language improve the usability of many types of natural language systems. Communication with computers using spoken language will have a lasting impact upon the work environment; completely new areas of application for information technology will open up. However, spoken language needs to be combined with other modes of communication such as pointing with mouse or finger. If such multimodal communication is finally embedded in an effective general model of cooperation, we have succeeded in turning the machine into a partner. The ultimate goal of research is the omnipresent access to all kinds of technology and to the global information structure by natural interaction. In an ambitious but not too far-fetched scenario, language technology provides the interface to an ambient intelligence providing assistance at work and in many situations of daily life. Language technologies can also help people communicate with each other. Much older than communication problems between human beings and machines are those between people with different mother tongues. One of the original aims of language technology has always been fully automatic translation between human languages. From bitter experience scientists have realized that they are still far away from achieving the ambitious goal of translating unrestricted texts. Nevertheless, they have been able to create software systems that simplify the work of human translators and clearly improve their productivity. Less than perfect automatic translations can also be of great help to information seekers who have to search through large amounts of texts in foreign languages. The most serious bottleneck for e-commerce is the volume of communication between business and customers or among businesses. Language technology can help to sort, filter and route incoming email. It can also assist the customer relationship agent to look up information and to compose a response. In cases where questions have been answered before, language Technology can find appropriate earlier replies and automatically respond.

Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing - 1488 Words

Teagan de Marigny DSVTEA001 Due Date: 16 September 2011 English Literary Studies: ELL1016S Tutor: Nicola Lazenby Tut group 13 Assignment 2: Poetry ‘Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing’ – Margaret Atwood ‘Helen of Troy does Countertop Dancing’, by Margaret Atwood, deals with the refusal to agree to or obey with the idea that woman need to live a self-respected life and have a humble day job, which is pressured by society in order for woman to be ‘Ideal’. As well as Atwood’s writing on the oppressed female and her finding of power and control in everyday life. In this poem, there is an account of Feminist Resistance. Through observing the context, contents and form of the poem evidence of this resistance will be made clear.†¦show more content†¦Ã¢â‚¬Ëœbut I come from the province of gods’(58) ‘My mother was raped by a holy swan.’(62) ‘in my blazing swan-egg of light.’(80) Here are three instances where Atwood refers to the myth of who Helen’s parents were and how she was conceived. Using Helen of Troy as the ‘prostitute/stripper’ in the poem creates great interest and entertainment due to the history of who Helen of Troy was. Helen is here being referred to as having no morals and self-respect. This introduces feminist resistance in the sense of irony that the ‘most beautiful woman in the world’ is a prostitute. This allusion provides us with the idea of the approach Atwood had for this poem. The poem begins with the idea that woman feel disgusted towards other woman who sell their bodies and degrade themselves by stripping and entertaining men. Women see this as giving woman in society a bad reputation and men who find pleasure in such a thing still sees this as a woman having no self respect. However this job is known as the world’s oldest profession for woman and who decides if this way of making money is really wrong? ‘...I should be ashamed of myself/if they had the chance. Quite dancing. /Get some self-respected job .’ (2-5) Helen then rebuts by stating that why would she leave this job when all she’ll be getting is ‘†¦minimum wage, and varicose veins†¦Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ (6-7) she goes on to say, ‘Selling gloves, or something. Instead of what I do sell. You have to have talent to peddle a thing so nebulous’ (12-15) whyShow MoreRelatedHelen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing1480 Words   |  6 PagesTeagan de Marigny DSVTEA001 Due Date: 16 September 2011 English Literary Studies: ELL1016S Tutor: Nicola Lazenby Tut group 13 Assignment 2: Poetry ‘Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing’ – Margaret Atwood ‘Helen of Troy does Countertop Dancing’, by Margaret Atwood, deals with the refusal to agree to or obey with the idea that woman need to live a self-respected life and have a humble day job, which is pressured by society in order for woman to be ‘Ideal’. As well as Atwood’s writing on the oppressedRead MoreThe Use of Mythological Allusions in Margaret Atwoods Poetry831 Words   |  4 PagesMargaret Atwood’s poems, â€Å"Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing† and â€Å"Sekhmet Lion-Headed Goddess of War†, allusions are used to empower and change the way we view the female speaker. This is especially obvious in â€Å"Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing†. The poem is about a stripper, which is considered to be quite a degrading job in today’s society. Normally such a protagonist would be looked down upon and pitied by the readers, and yet through allusions to Helen of Troy (a woman widely consideredRead MorePower of Power Essay1170 Words   |  5 Pagesdesire for an establishment of power, if one(it?) does not already exist. Power can be greedy, selfish, aggressive, but also a necessity for order and peace. It is always controlling. It has existed since the beginning of time and will continue to play a vital role in the lives of all, forever. In literature, power can be depicted in a variety of ways, affecting different numbers of people and things. Margaret Atwood’s â€Å"Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing†, Toni Cade Bambara’s â€Å"The Lesson†, Henrik Ibsen’sRead MoreHelen Of Troy Does Countertop Dance A nalysis1359 Words   |  6 Pagesspecifically, woman dealing with the essence of being a woman and how other people think they must behave. In Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing exemplifies three main roles, although all intermix constantly throughout the poem. The first role Helen takes on is a stripper, the second is the goddess from the myth, and the third is a representation of all women around the world. The roles the character â€Å"Helen† takes throughout the poem reveal important feminist values and illustrate many important the individual