scholarly journals Bella Abzug, queer rights, and disrupting the status quo

2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Trevor G Gates ◽  
Margery C Saunders

Workers who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ)-identified have always been a part of the workplace in the United States, yet there has been a lack of awareness about how to advocate for the needs of these people. This lack of awareness was challenged by Congresswoman Bella Abzug. Abzug’s campaign for creating an equal working environment for sexual minorities initiated gradual changes in the public discourse concerning workplace and other broad equality measures for these communities. To frame these gradual transformations within a historical context, we use Lewin’s force field analysis framework to examine the change efforts of Abzug. Abzug had beginning success in thawing the status quo yet her visions for equality for LGBTQ people have yet to be realized. Using Abzug’s social action as an example, this article concludes that allies must continue to challenge societal oppression, power, and privilege and to demand civil rights protections for LGBTQ individuals.

Author(s):  
Candice Delmas

Chapter 1 surveys the literature on civil disobedience and places the author’s own approach to resistance and principled disobedience within this context. Public understanding of civil disobedience is the product of two different strands: the broadly Rawlsian philosophical conception of civil disobedience and the official narrative of the civil rights movement in the United States. This chapter calls upon history to show how the standard, broadly Rawlsian conception of civil disobedience (though not necessarily Rawls’s own) rests on an unrealistic and objectionable reading of the African American civil rights struggle. It also argues that the official reading of the civil rights movement functions as a counter-resistance ideology, deterring any form of protest against the status quo. It then examines and critiques recent “inclusive” accounts of civil disobedience, proposing instead a broad matrix of resistance that includes lawful acts of resistance and principled—civil and uncivil—disobedience.


PEDIATRICS ◽  
1957 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 366-386
Author(s):  
Samuel Karelitz

Any practice or social institution which is increasing at a rapid rate deserves review by the professions involved and by the public, to see where it is going and how it is getting there. This question of adoption is a vast national problem and one that concerns medical and legal practitioners, the courts, public health, public or private social agencies. Adoptions in the United States have increased 80% in the last 10 years, and the increase appears to be continuing. The reasons for this phenomenon are probably many and mixed. Underlying them is the widespread interest in family life, in wanting children and more children as evidenced by the increase in the birth rate and in the size of families. Even college graduates, traditionally the low birth-rate group, are having bigger families today. As a background for the more specific papers to follow, I should like to present an over-all view of the extent of the problem and some of the major issues involved. There is no over-all national pattern of adoption procedure in the United States as defined by law or as carried out in practice. Just as laws vary from state to state—on marriage, divorce, taxation, or civil rights— so laws relating to adoption vary. Much of our legal machinery, furthermore, is concerned with the process of legalizing the status of the child, of finishing the job and tying the knot, and not with the core of the problem—the placement of a child for adoption. There are great differences in social agencies. Their practices as well as their philosophy are undergoing study and reappraisal all the time—and especially now.


2005 ◽  
Vol 16 (07) ◽  
pp. 410-418 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dennis Van Vliet

The members of the profession of audiology often express concern that the services and products that have been developed to provide benefit to the hearing impaired are not sought after or delivered to the majority of those diagnosed with hearing loss. A critical look at the status quo of hearing care delivery in the United States is needed to verify this assumption and to develop strategies to improve the situation. A key concern is the lack of a comprehensive high-quality scientific database upon which to build continuous improvements in the effectiveness of the services and products that are provided to the hearing impaired.


2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-65
Author(s):  
Mary Varghese ◽  
Kamila Ghazali

Abstract This article seeks to contribute to the existing body of knowledge about the relationship between political discourse and national identity. 1Malaysia, introduced in 2009 by Malaysia’s then newly appointed 6th Prime Minister Najib Razak, was greeted with expectation and concern by various segments of the Malaysian population. For some, it signalled a new inclusiveness that was to change the discourse on belonging. For others, it raised concerns about changes to the status quo of ethnic issues. Given the varying responses of society to the concept of 1Malaysia, an examination of different texts through the critical paradigm of CDA provide useful insights into how the public sphere has attempted to construct this notion. Therefore, this paper critically examines the Prime Minister’s early speeches as well as relevant chapters of the socioeconomic agenda, the 10th Malaysia Plan, to identify the referential and predicational strategies employed in characterising 1Malaysia. The findings suggest a notion of unity that appears to address varying issues.


PEDIATRICS ◽  
1949 ◽  
Vol 4 (6) ◽  
pp. 839-845

The eloquent statement on the status of Negro medical care and education in the United States by the eminent anatomist, Dr. W. Montague Cobb (Brown America's Medical Diaspora: A Paradox of Democracy, in The Pediatrician and The Public, Pediatrics 3:854, 1949) requires the attention of all physicians interested in the distribution of medical care. Although pediatricians cannot begin to assume responsibility for this entire problem, it is possible to demonstrate leadership in the same manner in which the Academy study of infant and child health services provided leadership to the profession and the public. We refer specifically to an extension of training facilities in pediatrics for Negro physicians. Certainly 15 certified Negro pediatricians in a country with 14,000,000 Negro people represents a serious discrepancy in the distribution of training facilities. Admittedly most of the problem has its origin in the distribution of training facilities for undergraduate students and the basic problems responsible for this situation. However, we have observed—as has Dr. Cobb—that many Negro physicians desiring training in pediatrics (as well as other specialties) are discouraged from applying for training because of what seems to be a dearth of positions open to them. It has been our impression, however, that many centers would consider Negroes for training appointments if qualified applicants applied. Would it not be advisable, therefore, for the American Board of Pediatrics to circularize the approved training centers in pediatrics in order to establish a roster of those centers which would consider Negro applicants for training positions?


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 33-46
Author(s):  
Antonio C. Cuyler

This article represents a snapshot and analysis of U. S. service arts organizations’ DEI statements and activities in 2018. At that time, many primarily White-serving U. S. cultural organizations responded defensively to accusations of elitism and a harmful rigged funding system that maintained the status quo by awarding most cultural funding to these organizations while undermining the health and vitality of cultural organizations by and for historically oppressed communities (Sidford, 2011). Furthermore, Helicon Collaborative (2017) found that even with a host of cultural equity, “diversity” projects (Tseng 2016), and public-facing DEI statements, little had changed within six years. Therefore, this study uses directed and summative content analysis to investigate the research question “what do cultural equity and diversity statements communicate about cultural organizations’ positions on DEI?” This study also uses Frankfurt’s (2005) essay On Bullshit and Laing’s (2016) two-prong definition of accountability as a theoretical framework to examine if and how cultural organizations hold themselves accountable for achieving DEI in the creative sector. Lastly, readers should keep in mind that the public murder of Geor-ge Floyd in 2020 has hastened all of the service arts organizations’ access, diversity, equity, and inclusion (ADEI) work examined in this study.


Author(s):  
Yen Le Espiritu

Much of the early scholarship in Asian American studies sought to establish that Asian Americans have been crucial to the making of the US nation and thus deserve full inclusion into its polity. This emphasis on inclusion affirms the status of the United States as the ultimate protector and provider of human welfare, and narrates the Asian American subject by modern civil rights discourse. However, the comparative cases of Filipino immigrants and Vietnamese refugees show how Asian American racial formation has been determined not only by the social, economic, and political forces in the United States but also by US colonialism, imperialism, and wars in Asia.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Stacey Wellington

<p>The mechanics of Athenian society in many ways empowered citizen women as essential components of their community. This reality, being at odds with Athens’ pervasive patriarchal ideology, was obscured by men anxious to affirm the status quo, but also by women who sought to represent themselves as ‘ideal’ examples of their sex. Using the votive offerings dedicated by women to Athena on the Athenian Acropolis in the Archaic and Classical periods as a basis, this thesis explores such tensions between the implicit value of Athenian women, which prompted them to engage meaningfully with their wider community, and the ideological edict for their invisibility. This discussion is based primarily on two points: firstly, that the naming of a male family member in votive inscriptions denotes female citizen status, thus articulating citizen women’s independent value and prestige within the polis; and secondly that the ubiquity of working women among the dedicators, and value of the offerings themselves, reveals women as controlling financial resources to a more significant extent than other sources would have us believe. In both cases, the actual value and authority of the female dedicators is concealed as the women aimed for a perception of conspicuous invisibility to legitimise their engagement with the public sphere.</p>


Buildings ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 567
Author(s):  
Hongping Yuan ◽  
Wenbo Du ◽  
Zeyu Wang ◽  
Xiangnan Song

Megaproject practices worldwide have triggered increasing research in megaproject management issues and led to an increasing number of papers being published during the last decade. However, it is demonstrated by the literature that there is no systematic examination on research development in the discipline of megaproject management, and consequently it is very difficult for scholars to quickly understand and grasp the research trend. Therefore, a research question naturally comes out, i.e., what is the status quo of megaproject management research and what are the research directions worthy of further investigation? This study aims to answer the question by conducting a systematic examination of the research development in the discipline of megaproject management. A total of 117 relevant articles, identified from six major international journals between 2009 and 2021, were analyzed based on the number of papers published annually, main author contributions, citations, categorization of the research methods and data analysis methods adopted, and research topics covered. The results indicated that developed countries, such as Australia, Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom, have enjoyed significant advantages in terms of megaproject management research. It also revealed that more sophisticated views and theory have been used effectively, rather than only basic qualitative methods, in a number of studies on megaproject management. Future studies on megaproject management will be led globally, where megaprojects will remain designed and built to better built environments. In addition, continuous in-depth research on related topics can promote innovation in megaproject management to achieve sustainable megaproject development. Megaproject management will continue to be a hot research topic in the future; in particular, megaproject investment and finance management have emerged as new challenging topics. The findings can be valuable for both industry practitioners and researchers to gain deeper understanding of the current status and future directions of megaproject management research.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-214
Author(s):  
Judith Saunders

Abstract This article proposes revisiting Howard Brenton’s The Churchill Play (1974). I contend that the play offers pertinent insights into how authoritarian governments come into being through the implicit cooperation of people who, wittingly or unwittingly, enter into a “conspiracy of obedience.” Although inspired by political issues that were current in Britain in the 1970 s and 1980 s, the play’s illustration of the fragility of democracy resonates with today’s political atmosphere, especially that experienced in the United States. By anchoring my argument to the theories of Bertolt Brecht, I aim to clarify Brenton’s intent and encourage a more parabolic reading of the play – perceiving totalitarianism not as the usurpation of power by a single individual or group, but as the consequence of people’s complacent and self-serving tendencies to comply with the status quo.


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