Hari Raya Aidil Fitri :)

It is just around the corner ... About 3 more days and it's Eid ... Eventhough I am no longer in the 'younglings' category - I could still feel the excitement in the air ...

In the office, there is only 4 of us in the room as the others have already took their early leaves for Raya. For my class earlier, there was only one girl who turned up for the class - out of 28 students in that particular DIM S1(1) class. Gosh - that is how BIG Raya is over here :p

Anyway, I would like to wish all my family, friends and Muslims all over the world - SELAMAT HARI RAYA AIDIL FITRI & MAAF ZAHIR BATIN.

Hugs
everyone at BTS

Of Man & Woman

Surprisingly the issue that I thought would be 'boring' { yawn yawn }, on the other hand became quite a 'hot' topic of discussion :)

Well, I am not trying to say that man is bad, woman is good :p but just to highlight the practices that has been going on around world. Just to fulfil some of my social obligations to make this world a better place :)

In order to understand the issue better perhaps I should enclosed another 'clip' taken from this marvellous book. This particular chapter talks about the masculine and feminine cultures. It is said that in a highly 'masculine' culture, men are viewed as assertive, oriented to material success and strong. While women on the other hand, are viewed as modest, focused on the quality of life and tender. In a highly 'feminine' culture, both men and women are encouraged to be modest, oriented to maintaining a quality of life and tender. The ten countries with the highest masculinity score are Japan, Austria, Venezuela, Italy, Switzerland, Mexico,Ireland, Jamaica,Great Britain and Germany.

As mentioned in the book, masculine cultures emphasize success and socialise their people to be assertive, ambitious and competitive. members of masculine cultures are thus more likely to confront conflicts directly and to competitively fight out any differences; they are more likely to emphasize win-lose conflict strategies.

Feminine cultures emphasize the quality of life and socialise their people to be modest and to emphasize close interpersonal relationships. Members of feminine cultures are thus more likely to emphasize compromise and negotiation in resolving conflicts; they are more likely to seek win-win solutions.

Organisations can also be viewed in terms of masculinity or femininity. Masculine organisations emphasize competitiveness and aggresiveness. They focus on the bottom line and reward their workers on the basis of their contribution to the organisation. Feminine organisation are less competitive and less aggresive. They are more likely to emphasize worker satisfaction and reward their workers on the basis of need; those who have large families, for example, may get better raises than the single people, even if the singles have contributed more to the organisation.

culture and ethics

This is taken from a chapter in an Interpersonal Communication Book by DeVito ... I am sharing this to enlighten some issues on culture & ethics.

In his note, DeVito mentioned that women in Afghanistan under the Taliban rule, could not be educated or even go out in public without a male relative escort and when they do so, the women are required to cover their entire body in special garments.

For some of us, this can be considered as acceptable but to those who are not familiar with the culture may find it disturbing. As it is mentioned in the chapter, some practices would be judged unethical and even illegal in some countries. As shown throughout history - sacrificing virgins to the Gods, burning people who held different religious beliefs and sending children to fight wars are just some of the examples.


It is sad to note that even today, there are still practices which may be 'disturbing' to some, being performed or practised by certain cultures. Namely

• bronco riding - a practice where a bull's testicles are tied so that it experiences so much pain that it bucks and tries to throw off the rider
  
• clitoridectomy - whereby part or all of a young girl's clitoris is surgically removed so that she can never experience sexual intercourse without extreme pain, a practice designed to keep her a virgin until marriage
  
• the belief and practice that a woman must be subservient to her husband's will
  
• the practice of wearing fur - in some cases necessitating the killing of wild animals and in others raising animals so they can be killed when their pelts are worth the most money

So the argument here is - does anyone has the right to object to these practices as each culture has a right to its own practices and beliefs. Given your own beliefs about these issues and about cultural diversity in general, what ethical obligations do you have as a fellow citizen of earth.

It is a good exercise to start thinking about the cultural diversity that we have here in our own country. Perhaps we should view things in the lights of other culture to understand it better ourself.

( DeVito, Joseph A.(2004).The interpersonal communication book,Pearson Education, U.S.A )