chapter 24 747- 755

The map on page 748 was interesting, it showed how everything was distributed and the increase in population which was a very big increase at during this time. in 2005 it was double the size of 1950. it shows you how fast the population is growing. what was interesting to me was that the north american population didn't grow that much but Asia's population grew a lot. The concern of the environment started in the 19th century. The hole point of this was protect the environment and spread the word so something could be done and things could change to help save the environment and make it better place.

chapter 24

This is about globalization of environmentalism and world environment. Some of the main things that affected the environment are the increaser of population, economic growth and fossil fuels. If the world had less people and didn't grow so fast and has less pollution in the air. There probably wouldn't be any problem with the environment but with the population growing so fast and more cars getting on the road it is getting worse they are making smarter and better friendly environmental cars. What surprised me alot was that in the 20th century the populated not only dub-led  but it quadrupled. It show how fast things can change and when things change that fast something usually comes with it, in this case the environment not doing so good.  The biggest part of all this is the all the fossil fuels are buring the ozone layer which is very bad. The environment has been and still is a very big thing today and people are trying to find ways to save it.

The Canadian Press

Date: Sunday Apr. 15, 2012 2:45 PM ET

WASHINGTON — The challenges facing American women have taken centre stage in the national political debate as President Barack Obama and Republican front-runner Mitt Romney do pitched battle for the hearts and minds of the country's all-important female voters.

Romney's attempts to stop a growing deluge of women to Obama were met with mockery on Sunday by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, who derided him for his claim last week that women accounted for a whopping 92 per cent of the jobs lost since the president took office.

"It's misleading and ridiculous," Geithner, making the rounds of the Sunday morning talk shows, said on CBS's "Face the Nation." "It's just a political moment."

Geithner conceded that the second half of the recession involved more female job losses due to teacher and education-related layoffs precipitated by state budget cutbacks.

It was mostly men, however, who found themselves out of work at the start of the recession in 2008 due to construction and manufacturing job losses, he said, meaning the pain was felt equally by men and women over the course of the economic downturn.

"The recession ... was already a year in the making before President Obama came into office," Geithner said.

"It's a meaningless way to look at the basic contours of the economy in that period of time, again because it starts artificially at a time when the president came into office and the crisis was still building momentum."

Politifact, a nonpartisan fact-checking organization, has in fact rated Romney's claim as "mostly false."

Nonetheless the so-called "war on women" has become a flashpoint in the 2012 election campaign, even before Romney was all but assured the Republican nomination last week when his only real rival for the crown, Rick Santorum, dropped out of the party's presidential race.

Polls suggest that Santorum's controversial stances on birth control and working mothers, in fact, sent women who consider themselves independent voters into Obama's camp.

A high-profile brawl earlier this year about access to birth control, resulting from Republican efforts to portray Obama's health-care policies as trouncing on the rights of Catholics, also put women's issues at the forefront of debate.

Republicans were hammered in public opinion polls on the issue, especially after conservative icon Rush Limbaugh called a Georgetown University law student a "slut" and a "prostitute" for her congressional testimony in support of Obama's policies on access to birth control.

Last week, Republicans had their revenge when a relatively obscure Democratic strategist, Hilary Rosen, said on CNN that Ann Romney had "never worked a day in her life." Even though both Obama and his chief strategist, David Axelrod, condemned Rosen for her remarks, Republicans said it revealed Democratic contempt for stay-at-home mothers.

"I made a choice to stay home and raise five boys. Believe me, it was hard work," Ann Romney tweeted shortly after Rosen's remarks.

The Romney campaign has since churned out bumper stickers reading: "Moms drive the economy."

It's all part of a full-court press undertaken by the Romney campaign to woo women away from Obama and into the Republican fold given female voters will likely represent almost 53 per cent of the electorate in November.

The former Massachusetts governor has repeatedly said during recent campaign stops that the president's policies have waged a "real war on women."

And yet a four-month-old video has surfaced that could prove damaging to Romney's efforts to portray himself as a white knight to stay-at-home mothers, in particular those who don't have the benefit of a spouse earning millions.

Shot in early January at a town hall event in New Hampshire, Romney spoke of his proposed welfare reform proposals when he was Massachusetts governor that would have required parents with young children to get jobs.

"I wanted to increase the work requirement," Romney said.

"I said, for instance, that even if you have a child two years of age, you need to go to work. And people said: 'Well that's heartless,' and I said: 'No, no, I'm willing to spend more giving daycare to allow those parents to go back to work. It'll cost the state more providing that daycare, but I want the individuals to have the dignity of work."'

Conservatives have long railed against welfare, advocating for policies that would force welfare recipients back into the workforce.

During his failed run for the U.S. Senate in 1994, Romney also acknowledged that many women have no choice but to work.

"This is a different world than it was in the 1960s when I was growing up, when you used to have Mom at home and Dad at work," he said. "Now Mom and Dad both have to work whether they want to or not, and usually one of them has two jobs."

Read more: http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Politics/20120415/Womens-issues-at-centre-stage-in-US-presidential-race-120415/#ixzz1sBeLGlUu

Women of the Arab Spring

The Middle East’s pro-democracy uprisings may well be the latest in a long line of gifts (algebra, soap, even the fork) that Arab civilizations have given the world. Yet one might think only men were risking, and sometimes losing, their lives in these protests—and definitely leading them.

But women were (and are) involved at every stage, including leadership. This doesn’t surprise those familiar with Arab feminism, since women have been the most consistent advocates of civil society across the region. In most of these countries women suffer from such discriminatory legislation as “guardianship laws,” which imprison them in the status of minors, so they’re well aware that “democracy” for half the people isn’t democracy. But they also have reason to be wary about how male-defined revolutions betray women.

Western instances of this abound, but a notorious Arab example is fitting. During the Algerian revolt against French colonialism, women fought and died beside men in the underground, certain that their own future equality was at stake. But with independence won, their “revolutionary brothers” sent them back to the kitchen.

So it’s crucial to document the vital role women play in these uprisings, and how they’re planning to ensure that in post-revolutionary and transitional periods they (and democracy) won’t be double-crossed again.

Each country’s situation is volatile and different, and Ms. will stay with the ongoing story. This report will focus on Tunisia and Egypt, the two “post-revolutionary” states as of this writing.

Tunisia, where the ferment began and the “Jasmine Revolution” toppled President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, demolishes stereotypes. In the country’s (relatively) progressive, secular society, women have had access to contraception since 1962 and abortion since 1965—eight years before Roe v. Wade. After independence from France in 1956, the government abolished polygamy and legislated women’s equality in marriage, divorce and child custody. Later, a minimum marriage age of 18 was established, as were penalties for domestic violence. Still, daughters could inherit only half of what sons could, and a husband could hold property a wife acquired during marriage.

So Tunisian women, their democratic yearnings deepened by their feminist ones, were ready to rebel. Blogger Lina Ben Mhenni was probably first to alert the world to Tunisian protests, in December 2010. (Despite threats and censorship, she persists.) And women flocked to rallies— wearing veils, jeans and miniskirts— young girls, grandmothers, female judges in their court robes. They ousted a despot and inspired a region.

But building a new society is a different challenge. Feminist Raja bin Salama, a vocal critic of fundamentalist subjugation of women, called for Tunisia’s new laws to be based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. She was denounced by Rashid al-Ghannouchi, exiled head of the Islamist party Ennahda, who vowed to hang her in Tunis’ Basij Square. He has now returned to Tunisia.

Still, Khadija Cherif, former head of the Tunisian Association of Democratic Women, guarantees women will continue to defend separation of mosque and state, saying, “The force of the Tunisian feminist movement is that we’ve never separated it from the fight for democracy and a secular society.”

The revolution Tunisia pioneered, Egypt made a trend, and one facilitated by women. Despite decades of dictatorship, a long-established feminist movement has survived there. Women had been key to the 1919 revolution against the British, but after independence were ignored by the ruling Wafd Party. The feminist movement erupted in 1923 when Huda Sha’rawi publicly stripped off her veil.

Remaining as active as possible in an autocracy, the movement embraces many NGOs and activists, reflected in the women at Tahrir Square who represented “all generations and social classes,” according to Amal Abdel Hady of the New Woman Foundation. At Tahrir Square’s checkpoints, men frisked men; women, women; and while there were several men’s lines to each one for women, that’s because in the past men—protesters as well as police— sexually harassed women so severely during protests that few women demonstrated. But Hady also noticed that the media paid much less attention to the women, fostering a perception that only men were in charge.

Yet, the action had been precipitated by a 26-year-old woman whom Egyptians now call “Leader of the Revolution.” On January 18, Asmaa Mahfouz uploaded a short video to YouTube and Facebook in which she announced, “Whoever says women shouldn’t go to protests because they will get beaten, let him have some honor and manhood and come with me on January 25.” The video went viral. The planned one-day demonstration became a popular revolution.

Soon, unsung protest coordinator Amal Sharaf—a 36-year-old English teacher, single mother and member of the organizers’ April 6 Youth Movement—was spending days and nights in the movement’s tiny office, smoking furiously and overseeing a crew of men. Google employee Wael Ghonim, who privately administered one of the Facebook pages that were the movement’s virtual headquarters, would later become an icon—but after he was arrested, young Nadine Wahab, an Egyptian American expert on new-media advocacy, took over, strengthening the online presence.

While Women of Egypt, a Facebook group, assembled a photo gallery of women’s role in the protests, neighborhood women wielding clubs patrolled their streets for security once the police vanished. “We see women, Islamist or not Islamist, veiled or not veiled, coming together and leading what’s happening on the ground,” said Magda Adly of the El Nadim Center for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence to Inter Press Service. “We’ll never go back to square one.”

Nonetheless, Nawla Darwish of the New Woman Foundation fears that because women weren’t pushing their own rights during the demonstrations, they’ll be ignored. “We are living in a patriarchal society,” she told Al-Masry Al-Youm, an Egyptian newspaper. And even the January 25 revolution may not be enough to change that.

Such fears are being realized. Nehad Abou El Komsan, chair of the Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights, is indignant that women have been left out of the political dialogue since Mubarak was ousted. Deplorably, the committee to redraft the constitution excluded women, even female legal experts. The Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights issued a statement denouncing the exclusion, signed to date by 102 Egyptian women’s organizations. So far, no response.

Egypt’s leading feminist, Nawal El Saadawi, now 80, feels a new social compact emerged in Tahrir Square: “But how to sustain this? We learned from Algeria. Women became angry when we heard the constitutional committee had not a single woman. Then the men dismissed our statement, since it was only paper. So we began planning a march and we are reestablishing the Egyptian Women’s Union—which had been banned—as an umbrella organization. We must unite for political power or men will exclude us. Once we are in the streets in millions, it’s not paper.”

Meanwhile, women persevere with stunning courage across the region.

In Yemen, protests were sparked by the arrest of 32-year-old Tawakul Karman, head of Women Journalists Without Chains. Now released, she insists, “There is no solution [to extremism] other than spreading the culture of coexistence and dialogue, skills that women master and possess.” In Bahrain, when police fired teargas at Shia women in chadors chanting anti-government slogans, the women sat down, and only after the police fled the caustic fumes did they leave. In Algeria, feminists marched, chanting, “Away with the family code!” In Gaza, Palestinians rallied, demanding that Hamas and Fatah unite, while Asma al-Ghoul, a young journalist known for her defiant feminism, called for a secular Palestine. In Libya, the revolt is, at this writing, still convulsively violent, including little-noticed reports of mass rape by government-hired mercenaries. Even less known is that it all began at the Benghazi attorney general’s office with a sit-in by lawyers and judges—led by Salwa Bugaighis, a lawyer in her mid-40s.

As Ms. goes to press, protests still are igniting in Jordan, Morocco, Libya, Oman, Sudan, Iraq, Lebanon and Djibouti. International Women’s Day demonstrations were staged in Kuwait, Bahrain, Yemen and Egypt. Rallies are even being planned in Saudi Arabia. In Iran—which is Persian, not Arab— thousands took to the streets against the theocracy. A regional young feminist action alliance,Women United for the Future of the Middle East, has just formed.

These women, who must confront first tyrants and then comrades, refuse to be stopped.

One last example. Syria, tightly controlling of its populace, boasts of setting records for women’s advancement. Vice President Najah al-Attar is the first woman in the Arab world to hold such a position (however questionable her real power). Yet in February, Tal al-Molouhi, a 19-year-old high-school student, stood in court chained and blindfolded and was sentenced to five years imprisonment. She had blogged about longing for a role in building Syria’s future.

Tal is that future. Sixty percent of the population in these countries is under age 30—and more than half is female.

Nebuchadnezzar, the writing’s on the Facebook wall.

Excerpted from the Spring 2011 issue of Ms. To have this issue delivered straight to your door, join the Ms. community.

Comments on this piece? We want to hear them! Send to letterstotheeditor@msmagazine.com. To have your letter considered for publication, please include your city and state.

This section is about Communism and socialism. Communist wanted revolution to happen so because of this they promoted it. About one third of the world was communist. Any relationships with communist countries were usually hostile and very bad. Communist revolutions had a bag part in the french revolution. Another big thing was Communist feminism were woman pushed as hard as they could to get equal rights for them selves. This was also a big time of globalization.

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” — Mahatma Gandhi

This reading was about the second wave of the European conquest, this happened in africa. This happened by military force. Another main point in the reading was about Nelson Mandela. They talked about when he was in jail and all of the things he accomplished.  He helped free the africans from europeans. India also has a problem with freedom it was a very big struggle. The INC was established and the few people that were involved were english speaking indians. india got there independence in 1947.

chapter 22 part 2

The cold war happened after world war 2 was over. The war was between the U.S and the Soviet Union. At the time the soviet union was ruled by Joseph Stalin, he believed in communism. Communism grew very big and started to spread all over the world. whats interesting is a cold war is mean that there is no fighting but in this war there was fighting. By the end of the 20th century communism had collapsed. They said that it collapsed because there leaders didn't have an interest in it anymore like they used to.

The reading was about the responsibilities of catholic social teachings. Individuals need to learn on there own, be productive in what ever there work is, and appreciate gods creations. It also talks about the rights to own land. Another thing was a world wide thing not just a small thing happening in some places. these regimes cam to power during the war. The past two decades of the 20th century Communism has collapsed every were except for china.

This section is about the evolution of the feminist movement and the raise of the communism. This is when woman were starting to get there independence. They were abel to work and get a better education now. In russia a lot of laws were made to make woman more equal. Divorce was legalized during this time. Zhenotdel was an all woman organization that helped the woman's movements and goal to have more rights and be equal.

this section is a lot about world war one. By 1900 Europe had controlled most of it civilizations. italy and germany became one and very powerfull. Another big thing was the triple alliance and the triple entente. the triple alliance was germany, italy and austria. and the triple entente was russia Britain and france. THis in a sense is what started the war. This war was a trench war far war, and when the men went to war a lot of woman started to in factories were men used to work.

Colonization had two waves, the first wave was in the north and south america. A change during it was drop of native americans. The people that in a sense took there place was Europeans and africans. The second wave was in Africa and asia.

This section is about education, It took a lot of time for western education to become open to the people. The chance to get a better education gave them a chance to leave and escape slavery. This let them have the chance to be a new person of there choosing.  This saved a bunch of people from slavery. Another thing that began to rise was religion. This became big since people needed hope and faith in something so they turned to Christianity. Both religion and education became very big in new zealand, Pacific islands and in non muslim africa.

chapter 20

This section talks about the colonies and there experiences. The Europeans wanted to take over so they used military force, this was easy for them because they had a lot of natural resources and they had guns and weapons. To make and become colonies you had to conquer territories. When the citizens started to see that there leader was power hungry and just trying to take over land they started to rebel.  There was also two different kinds of waves of european conquest. The first was america, the second place was asia and africa. The major countries that were into colonialism was france, britain, italy, germany Portuguese, and russia.

The invisible hand theory, is how the world today works. Everything is supply and demand. Today people can be what ever they want to be, some times they will succeed and some times they wont. They can do any job or profession they want, usually has to do with what they think will make them the most money at the time. This idea that adam had come up with is today considered the most effective way to go about things. What Im still curious about is how supply and demand came to be known as the invisible hand.

theory of the invisible hand

The reading was about supply and demand. Adam believes with this theory of supply and demand he will get people to buy the products. He talks about economy becoming better through its consumers, since it is dependent on it.  When demanding on consumers the supply is going to vary from time to time. This can be very good for the economy and very bad it means at points thing may sell very well and your shop may be booming but then it could also mean that you shop could be out of business because its not selling anything because of a time in the year or just anything.

When industrialization spread through the USA and Russia, it had all ready started in western europe. In the 1900s is had basically spread ever were. The out comes were basically the same every were. Even though the out comes were very similar by 1914 the united states was the worlds leading industrial power.  One of the big things that happened was that the difference between the poor and the rich grew. There was a lot of labor for the working class at this point, there was not a problem about getting a job.

chapter 18

They talked about the freedom of the individual person. Also another big thing was europe transformation   to the modern time. They also had a big scientific revolution. And there population grew. The biggest invention was the steam engine. This changed transportation and alot of things like trade and how long it took to get from one place to another.

In all places there is the lower class and the higher class. The biggest class is always the lower class. This is how it was in Europe, and in france not the nobles or church. These people usually live vary bad and harsh lives and are sometimes forced to do things that they don't want to do. There was a north American revolution.   There was also a french revolution which caused a huge slave revolt. The slaves slowly with time started to have power. There was also the latin American revolution with the spanish colonies. This time was filled with a bunch of revolutions that changed a lot of things, in terms of the lower classes.

chapter 17 507-524

What was interesting to me was the Haiti was the one of the first american countries that gained independence. Haiti had a lot of slavery at the time but still managed to be one of the first. Haiti used to be called Saint Domingue. It had a lot of plantations about 800,000 the produced sugar and coffee. The majority of the people there were slaves the rest were Caucasian and other cultures.

Trade was big from the 15 century to the 19th century. What was interesting was trade could be very dangerous, people died were stollen from forced in to labor, beaten and so on. Slave trafficking became big during this time. Portuguese explores went to Africa and found a lot of slaves. The was also act one and act two.  Tomas jefferson was ruling france at the time except they were in really bad condition. Also king louis wanted to raise taxes. During this time period a lot was going on.

chapter 17

In chapter 17 there was a few revolutions, the atlantic revolution was a famous revolution that was in europe. The one after was the Haitian revolution, the french revolution and the spanish American revolution.The revolution had slaves which were made to do all the busy work and hard labor. What was interesting to me was that Thomas Jefferson was the ambassador of france.  Some of the things going across the atlantic was newspapers, books and pamphlets. By the end of each revolution, it would show and represent the new world.

The enlightenment was about learning and gathering knowledge. They were big on the hole community learning not one person, because it does no good for one person to have knowledge and no one else. It was also in a sense to open your eyes and see something new that you hadn't seen before. Its also about thinking for your self and making your own decisions.  what was surprising to me was why its called the 19th century since the times are different.

Immanuel Kant says enlightenment: "it's a man's release from his self-incurred tutelage." I believe the author was looking at our time and saying the we have a lack of knowledge and free will.  A big part of this for me is that people should be able to  make there own decisions and know why they did. The author said that when people are able to achieve enlightenment they are basically free and that freedom plays a huge part in enlightenment. 

chapter 16 second part

In school christianity was mandatory and forced on the students who went there. I don't think this was right at all. Religion shouldn't be forced on kids at school. they should have the right to believe what ever they want to believe. Christianity was limited to Europe.  Christianity was divided between the Roman Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox. Another part is the rebirth of science. The revolution changed a lot of ideas. This challenged the church and what they had to say. What science had was proof, and it became so popular and it spread al over.

chapter 16

Back then, religion was very big. Christianity was the most well known back then. It was spread out through out europe. Back in the modern times they thought christianity was the only way to heaven. What i also found interesting was that Strayer said that science was almost like a "new religion". Another thing that was interesting was how much christianity had an effect on people. At times people were forced to pick between religions. At this point in time everyone for the most part believed in some thing.

There was a lot of forces the were big in this time period like empires and commerce  between 1450 and 1750. The slave trade was a big part of this also. There was very big commerce in the indian ocean because you could travel almost any were you wanted. This made some people very rich and wealthy.  Something I found very interesting was the African Americans were not the first slaves. It was slavic people who were first. Back then slavery was as bad as owning a pet which for some can be pretty bad depending on the owner. 

This chapter talks about trading different things between different countries like sugar, spices, silver and fur. America got there spices from India, they also go silver and fur and england wanted there sugar from America. Russians got there fur from siberia. The big part was all the trading companies. The Dutch company controlled shipping and the making of cloves, mace and cinnamon. They also talked about be careful about japan so there was a rise in mercenaries.  So with trading also the militaries were brought in to protect all the goods.

Sweet Nexus, Sugar and The Origins of the Modern World

While empires expanded the world became more industrialized. While they expanded they only took what was valuable and useful. Also back then sugar was a very big thing. There wasn't that much of it because it took a lot of labor to produce it. The Europeans didn't have that much of it. Also the big thing was slaves. Black people having to work for white people doing the things they didn't want to do like all the labor. this bothers me. things today have change and now everyone is equal.

In the end they talk about the russian and asians empires. The russians had the largest state and Moscow was it center. This is were the Mongol rule started. What I found interesting was that every time they conquer an area they forced everyone to change religions and learn there new language. Sometimes they were also forced to give money and any goods they had. But compare to taking over there land and even making them slaves thats not to bad.

Chapter 14 Part 1

The Europeans had a lot of advantages to help them become one of the most successful empires out there. some of which are there location and all the land around them that was unclaimed by any one. Empires were made up of more than just there culture and what they had around them but also by the most important part their religion and what they believed in. it helped them sat standers in various ways.   There big expansion was moving to the americas but when they did so they not only brought there population but they also brought there diseases and sickness to america which before hadn't existed. This was not good for the indians, some got sick and died because of it. Bt the end of everything was starting to be one of the most developed countries at the time.