Men Vs. Women

1.      When it comes to public speaking and interacting in a public setting, women use conversation to build rapport; while men tend to talk to report or give information. Women talk for interaction.  Communication is a way to show involvement, while listening is a way to show interest.  For males, conversation is how one negotiates his status in the group by showing dominance. Conversation is used to preserve ones independence. Females, on the other hand, use conversation to negotiate closeness and intimacy; talk is the essence of intimacy. From even these simple observations, one can see the potential problems when men and women communicate. Women create feelings of closeness by conversing with their friends and lovers. Men don't use communication in this way, so they can't figure out why women love to talk. Often men just tune their women out. Through the lens of a man a women’s language is seen as powerless; while the language of man is powerful. Women constantly find themselves as being framed one down rather than one up. When men do the majority of the talking in meetings women feel that they are dominating the current situation which inhibits them from participating: women often fail to voice their opinions because of the consequences she might face. Women often take more of a ‘backstage’ or ‘backseat’ approach; in other words women are more likely to be reserve while men are more likely to be the vocal ones.  These differing styles can affect women in a myriad of different ways depending on the perspective (males or females point of view). If a woman is constantly dominated by her male counterpart in a work setting it may result in a loss of a job promotion or an invention for other men to treat her with disrespect. From a women’s perspective her communication skills allow her to take 'center stage' because she knows the appropriate times to change up her way of communicating. 

Prevaricate: be deliberately ambiguous or unclear in order to mislead or withhold information.

Forficate: adjective: Deeply forked.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Elizabeth Cady Stanton had a very modern way of thinking during the 20^th century. Elizabeth had a very assertive and passionate personality concerning the many injustices facing women and African Americans.  Being that her father was a lawyer she was fortunate to have an insight on laws and the legal system. Elizabeth and her father did not agree on a variety of different issues; the main issue was women suffrage. Elizabeth was first introduced to the idea of abolishing slavery while visiting a cousin. Her cousin informed her that his house was one of the stops on the Underground Railroad. Elizabeth was able to meet and talk with Harriet Tubman; during that time they exchanged different views on slavery and women’s suffrage. In 1868, Elizabeth worked with Susan B. Anthony on the Revolution, a militant weekly paper. From there they formed the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) in 1869. Stanton was the NWSA’s first president. At that time the organization merged with another suffrage group to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Stanton served as the president of the new organization for two years. Elizabeth often traveled to give lectures and speeches. She called for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution giving women the right to vote. Besides chronicling the history of the suffrage movement, Elizabeth took on the role religion played in the struggle for equal rights for women. She had long argued that the Bible and organized religion played in denying women their full rights. Elizabeth and her daughter Harriet Stanton Blatch published a critique, The Woman's Bible, which was published in two volumes. The bible received considerable protest not only from expected religious quarters but from many in the woman suffrage movement. As she began to age she became less concerned with suffrage and more interested in divorce reform and other matters during her last years. Elizabeth was able and willing to speak out on a wide spectrum of issues from the primacy of legislatures over the courts and constitution, and women’s right to ride bicycles. Elizabeth was extremely zealous on the women’s suffrage.

Overwhelm: upset, overthrow

Plebiscite:  A direct vote of the qualified voters of a state in regard to some important public question

Mandatory minimum sentencing

Many Americans want to believe that everyone is treated fairly under the law; when it comes to our judicial system many African Americans are not. Mandatory minimum sentencing was implemented to reduce judicial discretion, allow for equally sentencing, while continuing to be tough on crime. Unfortunately this is no longer the case, many African Americans especially drug offenders and addicts have become victims to this system: Their criminal background, role in the crime, and life circumstances have all been ignored when they are given a harsher sentence for a minor drug offence. The ineffectiveness and inequality of the mandatory sentencing has resulted in overcrowding in jails, sentencing disparities, and racial discrimination when it comes to sentencing African Americans in drug related offenses.

Crack cocaine became ubiquitous in the mid 1980’s due to the crack epidemic and the death of Leonard Kevin "Len" Bias. Len Bias an African American college basketball star who was signed with the Boston Celtics overdosed from powder cocaine just two days after his signing. Len Bias’s death brought forth a swarm of media attention as well as the Len Bias law that was enacted by congress in 1986 in response to the death of two all star college players. This law implemented mandatory sentences for many drug related offences.  Since many believed that it was in fact crack-cocaine that caused Bias’s death, crack-cocaine received the strictest regulations. If you were convicted of dealing crack-cocaine you received the same five year minimum sentence as a person who was dealing 500 grams of powder-cocaine.  The law was written with the lack of knowledge regarding the potency of crack, how the drug trade worked, and ways to fix the crack epidemic.  Instead it presented the citizens with an error prone racially bias quick fix. 

To evaporate is to fade away or to literally turn into vapor. If you leave a glass of water out and the water slowly disappears, it's not being consumed by elves; it's evaporating.

Discomfit is occasionally used as a noun to mean embarrassment or distress, but discomfitureis preferred: