Why are there fewer women in decision-making position?Possible reasons: glass ceiling, glass escalator, mommy track, stereotyping due to culture

Glass ceiling: A term refers to situation where the advancement of a qualified person within the hierarchy of an organization is stopped at a lower level because of some form of discrimination, most commonly sexism or racism tends to cripple working women the most.

This barrier prevents large numbers of women, ethnic minorities, and sexual minorities from obtaining and securing the most powerful, prestigious and highest-grossing jobs in the workforce.

Causes of gender inequality:

- Greed- competition between men and women. - Social differences which leads to stereotypes, prejudice and bias also contribute

to glass ceiling- Occupational segregation- more than half of all women workers hold sales, clerical

and service jobs. Studies show that occupations in which there is large number of women have lower wages.

- Lack of education- having education is one of the best ways to confront the gender inequality. Poorly educated people have their chances of earning potential and ability to stay employed decreases.

Effect of gender inequality:

- Gender wage gap whereby women are concentrated into the lower-ranked and lower paid occupations within a given profession.

- Psychological effects on women – causing frustration, dissatisfaction, effect productivity women leave job- turn over to search other job.

- Arise conflicts at the workplace- no longer a healthy environment for working- affect workers’ productivity.

Ways to overcome:

- Education- Laws and regulations- Media’s role – influencing public opinion on gender inequality, increasing

educational opportunities for females, increasing economic opportunities for women.

What are the effects if steps are taken?

Positive:

- In recent years, literature has produced evidence indicating the gender inequality tends to have a negative effect on economic development. For example, research finds that if countries of South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East and North Africa had achieved gender equality in schooling during the period 1960 to 1992 as rapidly as in the East Asia Countries, their income per capita could have grown by an additional 0.5 to 0.9 percentage point per year. For Africa, this would imply an almost doubling of per capita income growth. Therefore, we can conclude that if steps are taken to solve gender inequality in workplace, it will definitely help to improve on our economic development.

Negative:

- Divorce rate increase- Get married late- human population might decrease- Women’s emotional state influences their work performance- family matter.

- Even if women surpass the glass ceiling, they feel isolated like outsiders. Most of the time they are the only female at that level and are surrounded by males. Many women have faced sexual harassment, wage inequality, blocked movement and gender stereotypes roles. Women are said to have different styles of leadership and management once they break the barrier. They are generalized to be more nurturing and caring in nature than men.

Global warming

Causes if global warming- deforestation, construction of buildings, atmospheric aerosols, burning of fuels from various kind of transportation, the greenhouse gases. – Each of us makes a significant contribution to the carbon dioxide found in the atmosphere. We do this by using – air-conditioner and heaters, driving our cars, open burning, etc.

Natural Causes of global warming- volcanic eruptions, solar cycles and cosmic rays, water vapour

Effects of global warming:

- Spread of diseases- Warmer water and more hurricanes- Increased probability and intensity of droughts and heat waves- Economic consequences- Polar ice caps melting- Effects on agriculture- food crisis, food security- Climate changes

Ways to overcome:

- Technology: new ways of doing things- Improvements to energy efficiency and vehicle fuel economy and increases in wind and solar power, hydrogen produced from renewable sources, bio-fuels, natural gases, and nuclear power.

- There is also potential to capture carbon dioxide emitted from fossil fuels and store it underground – a process called “carbon sequestration”

- Increasing forestlands and making changes to the way we farm could increase the amount of carbon we’re storing.

- Harness the power of wind- Houses with many windows to substitute the use of air conditioner.- Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act- Kyoto Protocol- a protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on climate

change aimed at combating global warming. - Global warming Legislation priorities for 2009- to create well-designed cap and

trade program to fight global warming, establish strong emissions reduction targets, ensure climate legislation responds to emerging science

- Promote clean technology solution- Education- curriculum- geography and science subject; co-curriculum- Kelab and

Associations eg: Pencinta Alam Sekitar. - Campaign: 3R Campaign, Earth Hour, Green Peace, Kempen Bumi Hijau, etc.- “Tak Nak” Campaign- not only friendly to health but also environment.- Media: A medium to push forward education, campaign, and to highlight law and

enforcement/ as announcement, advertisement/ e-media and written media- NGOs: Pencinta Alam Sekitar- raise awareness, give talks to communities, college

students/ World Health Organization and Ministry of Health put in concern to what activities should be prohibited – not only to maintain the health of community but also environment.

- Religion- educate community regarding current environmental issues.

Effects and Influences of Western Culture

Through cultural diffusion western culture is brought into our country through three different ways Direct Diffusion, Forced Diffusion, and Indirect Diffusion.

Direct Diffusion: when two cultures are very close to each other, resulting in intermarriage, trade, and even warfare.

Forced Diffusion: When one culture subjugates another culture and forces its own customs on the conquered one.

Indirect Diffusion: When traits are passed from one culture through a middleman to another culture, with the first and final cultures ever being in direct contact.

Several types of culture:

- pop culture- sub culture- counter-culture- high culture

Impacts:

- Lifestyles and identities- own culture is forgotten/ simple family structure on nuclear family- decline of extended kinship relation.

- Impacts on human personality and psychosocial factors: materialism and individualism- ignorance on social responsibilities which in turns lead to the adaptations of freedom of dating and pre-marital sex, casual sex, etc.

- Religious: Christianity/ values/ biblical stories – contains fundamental precepts, society will socialize in a proper manner with the guide of religion

- Education: Poems, Literature, Drama- - Health: obesity follows the golden arches as diffusion of western culture occurs. –

In every city where McDonalds appears, it seems, the populations begin to get fatter.

- Celebration- Mothers’ day, Fathers’ day, Valentine’s day, April Fool- Western wears and fashion statements- punk, hip-hop, grudge, rock, etc.- The trend of divorce- Introduce drugs and alcohols- social illnesses- Concept of democracy- equality, freedom and fairness are emphasized

Communication Barriers

1. Muddled messages effective communication starts with a clear message, Contrast two messages “please be here about 7:00 tomorrow morning” “please be here at 700 tomorrow morning”. The one word difference makes the first message muddled whereby the sender leaves the receiver unclear about the intent of the sender, while the second message is clear.

2. Preconception and stereotyping causes people to act as if they already know the message that is coming from the sender or worse, as if no message is necessary because “everybody already knows”. Both sender and listener should continuously look for and address thinking, conclusions and actions based on stereotypes.

3. Language: different language/ non-educated and educated/ buzzword or misleading language Different languages, vocabulary, accent, dialect represents a national/ regional barriers. Semantic gaps are words having similar pronunciation but multiple meanings like- round; badly expressed message, wrong interpretation and unqualified assumptions. The use of difficult or inappropriate words/ poorly explained or misunderstood messages can result in confusion. Presence of slang and jargon in our speech would also be a kind of communication. For example, Warcraft, arena, armory Msn-avatar, nudge, emoticons, etc, all these sound unfamiliar to those who are do not play online games, especially the elders and girls.

4. Generation gap

5. Poor listening skill/ absence of readiness Listening is difficult. A typical speaker says about 125 words per minute. The typical listener can receive 400-600 words per minute. Thus, about 75 percent of listening time is free time. The free time often sidetracks the listener. The solution is to be an active rather than passive listener. One important listening skill is to be prepared to listen. Tune out thoughts about other people and other problems. Search for meaning in what the person is saying. A mental outline or summary of key thoughts can be very helpful. Avoid interrupting the speaker. "Shut up" is a useful listening guideline. "Shut up some more" is a useful extension of this guideline. Withhold evaluation and judgment until the other person has finished with the message. A listener's premature frown, shaking of the head, or bored look can easily convince the other person there is no reason to elaborate or try again to communicate his or her excellent idea.

6. Interruptions Regardless of the cause, interruption is barrier to effective communication. In the extreme, there is a reluctance of employees and family members even to attempt discussion with a manager because of the near certainty that the conversation will be interrupted. Less extreme but serious is the problem if incomplete instructions because someone came by with a pressing question.

7. Gender differences A man talks in a linear, logical and compartmentalized way, features of left-brain thinking; whereas a woman talks more freely mixing logic and emotion, features of both sides of the brain. Besides, men and women always have different opinions towards the same thing. For example, for a husband, honeymoon would be the golden opportunity to ignore the rest of the world and simply explore each other. However, for a wife, honeymoon meant an opportunity to try out her new role as a wife.

8. Cultural differences each culture has its own rules about proper behavior which affect verbal and nonverbal communication. Whether one looks the other person in the

eye-or not; whether one says what one means overtly or talks around the issue; how close the people stand to each other when they are talking--all of these and many more are rules of politeness which differ from culture to culture. Besides, different cultures regulate the display of emotion differently. Some cultures get very emotional when they are debating an issue. They yell, they cry, they exhibit their anger, fear, frustration, and other feelings openly. Other cultures try to keep their emotions hidden, exhibiting or sharing only the "rational" or factual aspects of the situation.

How can we reduce divorce rate?

Reason of divorce: From numerous foreign literatures concerning marriage and family, it stated that the top three common factors that influenced divorce were:

1. Infidelity

2. No longer in love in most cases, no longer in love was caused by marriage burn out. Symptoms like little emotional connection, disengaged relationship for partners to pay attention with. Nonetheless, people often stay married due to their religious values or for economic reasons.

3. Emotional problem associate with violence- verbally and physically attack. domestic violence.

Of course among all, top of the list is infidelity, for us, we have to understand that an infidelity means having sex with someone rather than the marriage partner and partner has committed adultery. In fact, the actual reason was not in the action of infidelity, but it has to deal with faith and respect. A general definition of marriage is that it is a social contract between two individual that unites their lives legally, economically and emotionally. This is to say when it is a contrast everybody has to respect. When dealing with emotion, married couple has to know how to maintain a healthy family together. It will be alarming signal for marriage if both parties in the family ignore it.

Impacts:

1. Diminish family value

2. Children’s development

3. Financial hardship

Solutions:

1. Campaigns and NGOs – government promoted pre-marital educational program throughout the whole country partnership with many associations and NGOs.

E.g. Malaysia’s eastern state of Terengganu is offering free honeymoon worth up to $440 each to rekindle the romance between married couple on the brink of divorce.

2. Family Enriched Program which acts as a supporting system to provide more help to the family.

3. Awareness program for divorce might be necessary to educate the divorcee about the consequences after divorce.

4. Moral values should be instilled within the children since young

5. Law and regulation- makes legal documents process of divorce cases more complicated

6. Education: the couple themselves could resolve their problem with the conflict resolution methods, divorce is not the only option.

Measures taken by government in the globalization of education

Globalization has become a buzzword. It has also become a key idea for business theory and practice, and entered academic debates. But what should we do to face the globalization in education, while knowledge has become an important factor in globalization especially in production to gain competitive edge and to survive.

Therefore, in order to achieve competitive national advantage, there are 10 components to be enhanced:

1. A focus on abstract concepts

2. Uses a holistic as opposed to discrete approach.

3. Enhances the students’ ability to acquire and utilize knowledge.

4. Enhances the students’ ability to manipulate symbols.

5. Produces an increased quantity of scientifically and technically trained persons.

6. Blurs the distinction between mental and physical labour.

7. Encourages students to work in teams.

8. Uses virtual teams around the world.

9. Is an agile and flexible system.

10. Break the boundaries of space and time.

11. Private college/ university in education.

Impacts of globalization:

1. Democratisation of education- the need to produce knowledge worker and global information society in order for the country to gain a competitive edge and to survive the challenges of globalization

2. Corporatisation of education- Malaysian government has relaxed restrictions on the establishment of private institutions of higher learning. – Life- long learning and adult education are emphasized and encouraged to provide alternatives avenues for higher education. – done through e-learning, distance-learning, part-time learning where age is no longer a factor of consideration. – Field of education has been marketed and transformed into an arena of commercial activities. – There is a restructuring of courses and programs to standardize “products” so that they can be marketed.

3. Delocalization of education- because of the internalization of economies and the advancement of ICT, there is a networking of individuals, institutions and corporations across the globe. – The universalization of ICT through the worldwide web has accelerated the process of information transfer and exchange. There is a free flow of ideas and information. gives rise to a borderless world (the shrinking world) and borderless education. – delocalization of education through e-learning and distance learning cuts across physical borders and space. Information can be easily exchanged through virtual forums and seminars. Academic discussions can be carried out in cyber space. Open universities become an important alternative avenue for higher education.

4. World class education- made possible through ICT. – Information can be obtained easily, at the click of the button, through the internet. Information can be accessed at nearly anytime, anyplace. – ICT makes possible virtual education

5. Modern technologies in education- makes learning fun, beyond the classroom, self-paced, information easily accessed, virtual discussions, forums, seminars- delocalized education

Measures taken in Malaysia:

- Re-emphasis on English- Emphasis in the teaching of Science- Smart school project- Cluster school- Improve the quality of teachers- University education- Promote lifelong learning- More opportunities for learning at certificates, diploma, degree and post graduate

levels in critical fields such as science and technology at polytechnics, public universities and private institutions of higher learning.

- Collaborative research between Malaysia and other nations- Accreditation of educational programmes- Improve the quality of head teachers

Air pollution

How can we promote unity in diverse culture in Malaysia, accordance t one Malaysia Concept?

The broad concept of one Malaysia, based on the principle of “People First, Performance Now,” is to bring the country’s multi-racial, multi-ethnic and multi-religious people together as “one” to create an united, harmonious, strong and successful nation.

The concept emphasizes on the vision of “oneness” as a people and a nation. The power of oneness and its simplicity seem to have a special appeal to many people. In view of both the ethnic diversity of the country and current racial discord, it is certainly an innovative and catchy way to drive home this point about the need for oneness.

One Malaysia’s 8 values

- Perseverance- Humility- Acceptance- Culture of Excellence- Loyalty- Integrity- Meritocracy- Education

We can learn from Sabah and Sarawak which have diverse ethnicities and yet their harmony appears in to be much better than that in Peninsular Malaysia. Any effort to promote the multiple identities of our nation is a step in the right direction towards one Malaysia. Our diversity is a strength and not a weakness. The Prime Minister should also oppose any attempt from any quarter to promote singular and identity based on chauvinism or misplaced pride or misinterpretation of religion.

If Prime Minister wishes to hasten one Malaysia into a reality, he should also look at:

1. Ensuring that any new affirmative policy must be strictly based on income and social class and not race or ethnicity.

2. Instituting broad anti-discrimination legislation to promote a more inclusive and united society consistent with one Malaysia so that no group based on race, ethnicity, religion, gender, age, disability would wittingly or unwittingly neglected or discriminated against.

Impacts of technologies on human communication

Positive:

- Fast- Convenient- Money-saving

Negative:

- Messages overloaded- Emails are difficult to destroyed- May easily made public- Not privileged communication- Can easily be used against you especially in the workplace- Emails provide permanent records- Maybe accessed by others, not safe.

How to solve interpersonal conflicts?

1. Avoidance

2. Dominance Not very good points to use.

3. Submission

4. Compromise

5. Collaboration

6. Mediation

7. Arbitration

8. Adjudication

9. Legislation