Corona Nuts

If taken by the continuous headlines, it seems the Coronavirus has taken all of us by storm and the apocalypse is near as we are all doomed.

It is currently present in 40 countries and according to the latest fear selling news, it has killed more than 2,000 people and counting. However, according to CDC, the number of deaths caused by the flu between 2019/2020 is in the range of 14,000, with more than 250,000 cases of people being hospitalised. But since it is a normal disease unworthy of headlines, it falls down into media oblivion.

Another example of pure mass histeria is the millions in loss that, according to The Evening Standard, the makers of the Corona beer are now suffering. the actual number is £132 millions. They predict to lose another 10% in the next quarter. One would think that this is due to more than just the similarity of the name.

In yet another Coronavirus twist, local sales are up due to the decrease in goods being imported from China. According to the BBC, a factory in Leicester that produces knitwear and cardigans has seen orders and inquires go up after a long period of low manufacture due to the low prices that the Chinese markets usually have.

The impact that the spread of headlines such as "Coronavirus is present in 50 countries and is only getting worse" in the Economist to the "Most Coronavirus cases are mild" in the New York Times, is severe and a shoddy job for real information that is greatly needed and possibly appreciated.

But no, fear sells and life is fast.

Low Skilled Workers

Low Skilled Workers


Today, February the 19th 2020 a piece of news made the headlines everywhere in the UK. It is the ban on low skilled workers and non English speakers from coming in to the UK. Aside from the possible backlash of left wing discourse or possible injustices with this system, it is worth thinking on its efficacy and criteria.

Let´s start with the latter, Criteria. Whilst browsing through the article The Guardian  there is a list that can be seen with elements of a point based system, of which anyone wanting to come in, has to adhere to and have a minimum of 70 points (Brooks, O'Carrol, Walker 2020).

If the criteria of speaking English seems to be a no brainer, the explanation as to what consists an accepted level of English is left out and will lead to confusion and interpretation, which is never a good thing in a selection process.

Next is the sponsor and job offer. Where would a person go to in order to find these sponsors? Why is this measure put in place without additional information to support it? How efficient is a system like this if is not made accessible to everyone regarding everything, from sponsors to job offers that are within a sponsor´s reach?

More can be said about the criteria but let´s turn to efficacy related to sectors. Currently the Construction, Hospitality and Food and Drinks are connoted with foreign work. One only needs to to a site, restaurant, or try to hire a housekeeper or nanny to find that whether this is a fact. If so, then what will happen to these jobs in the future? Who is coming to fill these possible vacancies? Are we to rely on British born workers to pick up the would be slack?

Seems like this move will need serious and thorough debate at to what it really is about. If Brexit has taught us anything is how messy it is and how filled with misconceptions and flat out lies.

Let's see what happens..



Source: Brooks, O'Carrol, Walker 2020. The Guardian. Available at https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/feb/18/uk-to-close-door-to-non-english-speakers-and-unskilled-workers

Hope or Fishing for Likes?

Hope or Fishing for Likes?

Recently as the past week, an article about a possible cure for cancer was published by the University of Cardiff in the journal Nature Immunology and consequently spread on social media and news outlets. It talks about a possible cure for all cancers through a unique T-cell inside everyone´s bloodstream. According to the article, its uniqueness is its receptor that recognises and gets rid of cancerous cells while leaving the healthy tissues unharmed.

However, this breakthrough with “great potential” has not been tested in humans as of yet. The article, which was shared and turned into a news bit by the BBC among others, only mentions this last part near the end of that same news bit. It begs the question of why.

 It seems to follow a trend of articles that apparently talk about a cure for this disease or a revolutionary discovery of some kind, only to find out that we are still very far away from an actual “smoking gun”.

To the many cancer sufferers, it seems to offer hope of some kind that in the end isn't rooted in anything that a human being can really trust. No successful clinical trials have been made, no tangible results exist. It looks like a new product is being sold that has no substance to it although it has charts and data and even medical jargon.

In the fast world of social media, click bait and deceitful headlines, this type of news, no-news, has spread like a virus with a speed of a bullet. We the fast people who don´t seem to have the time or inclination to wait for an actual result, are left with the trap that offers hope but lets us down.

There are many examples out there of this type of journalism, one that is much more interested in “likes” it gets, rather than offer useful information.

Instead it “sells” hope and doesn't deliver it. It is the eagerness to produce content that creates its undoing. It is the marketing strategies ruling over people´s interest. The pressure to sell is winning over the actual job of informing and information deserving of its name.

 We all deserve better.

PTSD vs SnowFlakism

PTSD vs SnowFlakism

Fergal Keane, a war journalist for the BBC has recently quit his job due to PTSD. After witnessing first-hand theatres such as the Rwanda genocide, the Iraq invasion and places with similar casualties, Keane has had enough. His mental health has been affected in a way that in which he is no longer able to do his job after decades of conflict coverage (Topping 2020).

PTSD is a common issue around soldiers coming back from wars, in this sense albeit a serious condition, it is not new. However, the discussion should be extended to other areas besides warfare. Indeed the “war” has many shapes and forms and can affect human beings as they face endless situations that can lead to trauma.

According to a study published in 2016, by the NCBI, adults that suffered physical or emotional abuse growing up are very likely to have experienced PTSD.  Victims of domestic violence are also very prone to suffer from this condition. The commonality seems to be the consequence of being exposed to violence.

This issue also varies in relation to gender. According to Greenberg Ph.D. (2018), 12% of women are likely to endure chronic PTSD whilst only 6% of men may experience the same. Greenberg suggests that what causes this disparity is  the fact that women are less inclined to report their sufferings especially around cases of sexual assault. It is the shame factor, and how hard it is to tell someone and having to relive the experience all over again.

The straightforwardness in which society accepts PTSD from war survivors is not the same as other causes. Willard Foxton, a card-carrying Tory, and freelance television producer is also a PTSD sufferer. In an article written in 2018, he mentions Piers Morgan's speech in which he says that if you are not a soldier you do not suffer PTSD. He later had to recant it. However, the stigma remains and non-combatant sufferers can easily be talked down as snowflakes who can’t handle what life throws at them.

It is fairly obvious where this type of culture will and has led to. It isolates people and interrupts an otherwise stable development that turns into depression and anxiety. More needs to be done. The ever fast society that doesn’t seem to stop for anyone has to tone down its quick judgements and listen to the sufferers. They are not victims of a snowflake culture. They are survivors of other life’s battles.

Sources

Bradley B., Etkin A., Gyurak A., Jovanovic T, Powers A. 2016. National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). Association Between Childhood Abuse Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and implicit Emotion Regulation Deficits: Evidence From a Low-Income Inner-City Population. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4705548/

Foxton, W. 2018.  New Statesman.Trigger warnings vs pathetic snowflakes: how PTSD sufferers became political pawns.  Available from:https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/health/2018/10/trigger-warnings-vs-pathetic-snowflakes-how-ptsd-sufferers-became-political

Greenberg. M Ph.D. 2018. Psychology Today. Why Women Have Higher Rates of PTSD Than Men. Available from:

 https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/health/2018/10/trigger-warnings-vs-pathetic-snowflakes-how-ptsd-sufferers-became-political

Topping A. 2020 The Guardian: BBC’s Fergal Keane to step down after revealing he has PTSD. Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/jan/24/bbc-fergal-keane-to-step-down-after-revealing-he-has-ptsd

Is culture ready?

Is culture ready?

It would be a positive outlook on the early twenty-first century if society had absorbed, due to acceptance, the overwhelming screams for parity and non-binary sexuality. It would then be reasonable to witness the last days of conservative obsolescence as a teenager refusing to grow up. However, it seems we are not there yet.

Progress has been made and culture does produce same-sex thematic and stories about empowering women and although it is pleasing to a postmodern audience, it still doesn't quite permeate the old order of meaning production. It is a complex issue still, tied to many forms of resistance, most if not all, have no tangibility and are nonsensical.

Patriarchy is, for obvious reasons, at the top of this belief system that has persecuted many individuals across time. But what patriarchy really is, is male insecurity and the greed of dominance that to this day is still seen and spread inside culture as institutionalised values.

As late as 2020, meritocracy still fails to account for women´s equality in the workplace, whether through less access to positions of power or less money paid for the same level as men. According to payscale.com, In the US, just last year women earned around 0, 79 cents for every dollar a man takes home. The career ladder also favours men by a factor of 16% in the late-career (45-year range).

In the UK, the managerial gap is 15% where men make around 22.07£ per hour. In the teaching workforce, women make fall short by 10%, according to the ONS. Overall the average pay gap is 8, 9% for the same hours of work. In a report published in 2019 by the Minister for Women and Equality, women usually have higher qualifications but earn less per hour. According to that same report, the top companies actually have an increase in profit if gender diversity is upheld.

It is important to make a distinction between equal pay and the pay gap. The first one is illegal and the second one is really about access to career development and top positions. According to strikingwomen.org one of the reasons for this is Education in early school where the traditional values are still taught, which makes it obvious that it is a social construct that tells men and women who they are in society.

Sarah Montague is both a case of success as it is of retrograde thinking. She has won her plea over pay inequality after proving she deserved the same pay as her co-host. Samir Ahmed is another woman who has won her right to be paid the same money for the same job. They were both employees for the BBC. They are successful stories that may encourage others and possibly create enough momentum so that companies think twice about maintaining this expensive status quo. However, it is an avoidable one. That is why it is retrograde. It is a culture that needs to go to court in order to see itself in a losing battle of, meaning, diversity and even profitability.

Tradition is another reason for this resistance, one that has caused much exaggeration from all sides of the struggle. The case of Meghan Markel speaks to the amount of noise that is added when tradition is put into question. She is a woman in a world that keeps telling her how to be. She has been accused of potentially prompt the end of the royal family, creating headlines to that effect. There is even a term called “Megxit” to enforce this idea that she is to blame for “going against” the royal family. Perhaps the question should be asked about what makes the royals a place to escape from.

If the #me too movement is a force to be reckoned with, it is also true that is had led to attempts of lexical changes that speak to this same exaggeration. Such is the case of History/Herstory. It is a claim that History is a male-driven word that promotes men and leaves women out of the story. It has been claimed as a sexist word. However, if one is replaced by the other, which may or may not be seen as ridiculous, the end result is the same partiality of the complainers, one that would promote women and leave men out. It would only serve to perpetuate the cycle.

Inside the meaning machinery of traditional norms, there are some fields that are trying to change the way deviance can be normalised. Two of these front runners are the movie and television universe that produces content that may be seen as postmodern but it is, in fact, a reflection of what is going on.  The series “Sex Education”, by the online platform Netflix, is an accurate example of this approach at pleasing different audiences. It is a coming of age story about teenagers and their sexual anxieties. However, in this case, it explores the realm of non-binary gender across male and female teens. It does so without making it weird or queer or uncanny. The choices and discoveries of characters are met with futile and obsolete resistance by a headmaster who represents the old way of thinking and therefore is ridiculed at every turn. It is a critique of the old and suggestion of acceptance the not so new.

Many more arguments can be in order to answer the question of culture readiness and its resistance to change. It is a collective but also individual endeavour, one that is not going anywhere any time soon. Society needs to allow people to make choices free from prejudice and it needs to be seen doing it. Speeches alone aren’t going to work.