Indian Weddings

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One of the biggest differences between Christians and Hindus is the way they get married. Christian weddings represent the joining of two people in holy matrimony. Indian weddings represent the joining of not only two people, but two families. Most Christian weddings only take a day to complete, whereas the majority of Hindu weddings take four to seven days to complete as each event occurs on an individual day, with the exception of the wedding and the reception. .

To begin the preparations for an Indian wedding, the couple first gets engaged. If this wedding is an arranged marriage, where the parents of a person choose their spouse, then this will be the first time they see each other. The engagement ceremony is performed months before the actual wedding, and marks the start of the wedding celebration. Both families are present for this ceremony, which entails a ring exchange, and then a round of gifts for the happy couple. Then the ceremony is followed by a meal, in which the couple is celebrated. Another ceremony that occurs at some engagements is a sagai (read: Sah-gai), where the mother of the groom gives the bride gifts, such as jewelry, and clothing; and the bride’s family gives the groom a tilak (read tee-lak), a mark to say that he will be accepted by the bride’s family, and other gifts.

The next ceremony that is done is the pithi (read: pit-thee) ceremony, and it occurs a few days before the wedding. This is an individual ceremony so the bride and groom are not together during this time. The yellow pithi paste is made from turmeric, chickpea flour, and rosewater; and is applied to the bride and groom by their family and friends. This paste is thought to even the skin tone naturally, so both participants can look their best for their wedding day.

On the night before the wedding, a mehndi (read meh-hen-dhi) party is held. The bride, along with women on her side of the family, party the night away, while having henna applied to their skin. There is usually food, drinks, music, and laughter during the whole night. The henna designs are drawn on the females by a professional henna artist, and symbolize many different ideas, such as happiness, love, offering, beauty, and more.

Now the actual wedding begins…

Typically, the groom will ride to the wedding on a white horse, or rather in today’s world a luxury car, with the rest of his family and friends dancing their way to the wedding beside him. One of the bride’s family  members acts as a lookout, and alerts everyone when they see the groom coming. The two families meet and the groom makes his way to the wedding pandel (read pah-an-del), a canopied area where he waits for his bride. A short worship ceremony is done to the god Ganesha (read Gah-neh-sha) to remove obstacles from the marriage. Then the bride is carried in on a palanquin, which is carried by male members of her family. The groom has a sheet in front of him, so he can not see his bride, and the bride holds betel leafs in front of her, so she can not see him until they put the garlands on. They uncover each other, and the couple exchange garlands to signify that they accept one another. Then the father of the bride places her hand into the groom’s hand to give her away. The end of the bride’s sari (read sah-ree) and the groom’s scarf (a part of his overall outfit made of thin material) is tied together, to symbolize unity and the bond of marriage. Then the ritual begins, with the lighting of the sacred fire, as a symbol of a divine presence in the marriage, and the priest begins the last worship ceremony. The bride and groom walk around the fire at first, while thinking about the four main aspirations of life in the Hindu culture: Duty, Prosperity, Karma, and Salvation. When it comes time to do the vows, the priest reads off the vows as the bride and groom walk around the fire seven times to signify the seven vows, taken from http://www.culturalindia.net/weddings/wedding-traditions/seven-vows.html.

“1.) Groom: You will offer me food and be helpful in every way. I will cherish you and provide welfare and happiness for you and our children.

Bride: I am responsible for the home and all household responsibilities.

2.) Groom: Together we will protect our house and children.

Bride: I will be by your side as your courage and strength. I will rejoice in your happiness. In return, you will love me solely.

3.) Groom:May we grow wealthy and prosperous and strive for the education of our children. May our children live long.

Bride: I will love you solely for the rest of my life, as you are my husband. Every other man in my life will be secondary. I vow to remain chaste.

4.) Groom: You have brought sacredness into my life, and have completed me. May we be blessed with noble and obedient children.

Bride: I will shower you with joy, from head to toe. I will strive to please you in every way I can.

5.) Groom: You are my best friend, and staunchest well-wisher. You have come into my life, enriching it. God bless you.

Bride: I promise to love and cherish you for as long as I live. Your happiness is my happiness, and your sorrow is my sorrow. I will trust and honor you, and will strive to fulfill all your wishes.

6.) Groom: May you be filled with joy and peace.

Bride:I will always be by your side.

7.) Groom: We are now husband and wife, and are one. You are mine and I am yours for eternity.

Bride: As God is witness, I am now your wife. We will love, honor and cherish each other forever.”

Then the groom gifts the bride a wedding necklace, and applies sindoor (sin-dor) to the bride’s head to show that she is married. She applies this on to the crown of her forehead as a symbol she is married for the rest of her life. Then the bride and groom finally exchange wedding rings, and feed each other sweets.

Before the reception, the couple is blessed by the elders in their family, and well-wished by all. Finally the reception happens, and the wedding is celebrated all night, much like a Christian wedding reception.

Aquifer Pollution Concerns about Fracking

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Have you heard those stories about how people can light their tap water on fire and blame it on fracking, like the video below (1)?

While this woman seems to be very concerned with the quality of her tap water and blames its capability to ignite on the fracking sites that occur near her house, this is not the case. Many fracking sites dig far below any aquifers (any geological formation containing or conducting ground water, especially one that supplies the water for wells, springs, and etc. [2]) that may be present in the area surrounding the well location. The average depth for an aquifer is 500 feet, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS) (3). However, the average depth of most drilling sites is 6,000 to 10,000 feet (4). Thus, as you can see, the depth at which the water flows down into the rocks that contain the oil and gas is much, much deeper than the aquifers that are present underground. Most of the companies that obtain natural gas and oil from the ground make sure to seal the well properly, so that the fracking fluid does not leak into the surrounding area and contaminate the water (5). If a fracking well is not sealed properly, and the groundwater becomes contaminated, it is the fault of the natural gas company not following procedure. According to Bruce McKenzie Everett, an adjunct professor of international business at the Fletcher School who previously worked for Exxonmobil, professionally sealing the well is not difficult. “With proper attention, mistakes can be kept to an extremely low level (5).” Natural oil and gas extractors have to work with the state that they are going to be drilling in. Thus, the government is able to create a procedure and a code that the companies would have to follow in order to eliminate the amount of contamination of the water that we can, while increasing state revenue (5). For many states that are suffering economically, fracking can be a great asset, and help to regrow the state’s economy.

According to the Forbes article, “Over 2 million frack treatments have been pumped without a single documented case of treatments polluting a water aquifer (4).” This statistic shows that fracking is very safe and there is a low chance for the fracking well to actually contaminate the surrounding aquifers. Additionally, the permeable rocks underground exist under miles upon miles of impermeable rocks. This makes any claims that the gas from the well flowed into the aquifer invalid, as the oil and gas cannot pass through the impermeable rocks. Oil and gas only exist under ground in very specific conditions. These conditions, taken from source (6) are:

  • a sedimentary source rock has to be at the right temperature range (temperatures greater than 250 °F)
  • the rock has to buried deep enough to “achieve the maturation temperature” and be buried for millions of years
  • a “permeable reservoir rock” has to be present next to the source rock to contain the oil and gas from the source rock that escapes from the source rock
  •  a non-permeable rock has to exist over top the reservoir rock, which effectively creates a seal for the permeable rock.

This seal creates a trap for the natural oil and gas, and thus traps the oil and gas under it. For the oil and gas to flow to the aquifers, which are closer to ground level, they would have to pass through this nonporous rock, and through all the other NON-POROUS rocks to reach the aquifers.  If these rocks were porous, and thus the oil and gas could flow through them easily, the oil and gas would have contaminated the aquifers a long time ago.  The oil and gas would not exist where it does now, if this occurred.

In this aspect, fracking is proven to be safe. As shown above, fracking can not really contaminate the aquifers that exist in the ground, as the depth at which the fracking actually occurs is thousands of feet below where the aquifers are located, and the rocks above the site where the reservoir rock is, are impermeable. Thus, the oil and gas can not escape from the reservoir rock. The only way that methane and other contaminants can be in the local water supply, is if they were already in the local water supply to begin with. If the well casings are done properly and securely, there is absolutely no chance that the fracking process will affect the aquifers found in the ground.

Citations:

(1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LBjSXWQRV8

(2) http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/aquifer

(3) http://www.chicagolandh2o.org/documents/deep-aquifer.pdf

(4) http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2011/06/21/ten-things-to-know-about-fracking/

(5) http://now.tufts.edu/articles/fracking-pro-and-con

(6) http://geoinfo.nmt.edu/faq/energy/petroleum/petroleum_geology_intro.pdf

MLK and Malcolm X Reflection Questions

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Malcolm X

I think Malcolm’s rationale for the creation of this organization is to unite the different African-Americans who were facing this common struggle together to find a way to gain independence. With this organization, I believe the Malcolm was trying to get all of his struggling “brothers” (people who were African American and facing the same struggles together) to cooperate. In the article, he states; “Once we are united among ourselves in the Western Hemisphere, we will unite with out brothers on the motherland, on the continent of Africa.” Additionally, he states “We will endeavor to build a bridge of understanding and create the basis of Afro American unity.” If he could get all of the sufferers to unite, I think that Malcolm thought that he could show that there is power in numbers, and that at least one person who participated in the organization would have similarities with the white men that they sat down with, as the African nations did. Thus, the unity of the Afro-Americans may aid with their fight for equal rights. From our class discussion, we said that uniting the African Americans would show them what they could do as a group (politics of association).

My interpretation of the self-defense policy is that Malcolm was following the Hammurabi Code (an eye for an eye). Even though this stress his point of equality, he takes it to another level, and asks his followers to be violent if they are attacked violently. But this would yield further troubles for him and his followers, so I do not think that this would be effective at all. With his self-defense policy, he is basically saying that if we get hurt, they should get hurt in the same way. I think that this would lead to an eventual “capturing” and execution of these followers and that is not good for him or his followers, because they would not be seen as martyrs but rather as instigators, since they are intentionally injuring the other person due to their hate. In my opinion, I believe that doing this, in this situation, would yield more material for the white people to use against them.

Education is such an important component of this speech as he believed that an educated man was a man who was able to have the basic human rights and see the need for every one to have them. During that time, many African American children were in the worst schools, and were not allowed to have a better education, since only the white children were able to enroll in the better schools. The children were not taught concepts and ideas that came from famous black people, and thus did not have role models to look up to that resembled them. They only had white role models to aspire to. Giving the kids a better understanding for education would show them that they could do anything, and become as well off as the white people are in the future. From our class discussion, a better education would help these kids realize a sense of self-identity, and to help find your place in the world. Additionally, the better education will help to separate the community from the white community, and thus give the African Americans a chance to better their situation and their civilization.

 

MLK

MLK reframes the discourse around his activities involving civic disobedience by first stating that he had a purpose to be in Birmingham (the nonviolent direct action program), and then he discusses how he feels that injustice is prevalent in Birmingham. Specifically, he states, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” By this sentence, he is saying that if you allow injustice to happen in one area due to race, or due to any other factor, soon other people will begin to practice this too, and thus make it more prevalent across the world. He also ties in the Bible as a way to contextualize why he feels the need to practice civic disobedience. Civic disobedience would be the best way to deal with this issue as it shows that you can not be pulled down (so to speak) by an evil man, but rather just put that in your past, and move on, by following the “Turn the other cheek” idea.

MLK’s explanation of non-violence would work as it first spots an issue that needs to be fixed, then try to have a civil discussion with the instigators, making yourself pure and not as agitated when it does not work, and then using direct action to fight it. I agree with this process, as it provides a better process and gives the people a reason to create the “disturbance”, or in this case, an economic withdrawal.

The in-group tensions and dynamics that Malcolm and MLK attempted to confront presented many challenges for both people. For Malcolm, the fight seemed to be between the elite and the poor, as the elite did not seem to care about the poor in his eyes. For MLK, I think that it was to show that his methods do produce results, as well as to confront the criticisms that he was getting from people, like the clergyman. From our class discussion, MLK seemed to be stuck in the middle ground and could not appease either side of his followers, the older people and the younger.

The Government Set-up Differs…

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The United States is a democratic republic, while India, according to india.gov.in/my-government, (I wanted to get this right) is a “Sovereign, Socialist, Secular, Democratic Republic with a parliamentary system of government.” There are many similarities between the style of government of these two countries. In India, there is the Parliament, which is the highest rule-making body in India. The parliament is comprised of the President of India, and the two houses called the Rajya Sabha (read Rah-j-yah Sah-bh-ah) and the Lok Sabha (read Loh-k Sah-bh-ah). The Rajya Sabha is the Council of States and the Lok Sabha is the House of the People. This is their form of our President, Senate and House of Representatives respectively. India also has a Prime Minister for the country, chief ministers for each state,  and a Council of Ministries that works with the Prime Minister. This is very similar to the US Cabinet that meets with the President of the United States.

Let us look at who is who. Currently, the Indian President is Shri Pranab Mukherjee (read Prah-nah-b Mhu-keer-gee). He lives in the Rashtrapati Bhavan (read Rush-tah-pah-ti Bha-vhan ) in New Delhi. Shri Mohd. Hamid Ansari (read Shree Mo-hum-mad Hah-mid An-sari) is the Indian Vice President, and he lives in the Vice – President House in New Delhi. The Prime Minister is  Narendra Modi (read Nah-ren-drah Moh-di). He actually met with President Obama, when the Obamas visited India recently. The picture below shows President Obama and Prime Minister Nodi greeting each other after the President go off the plane in New Delhi. 635577438020732696-AFP-537084310

There are 26 cabinet ministries and 39 Ministers of the State that make up the Union Council of Ministries. Rather than list them all, I invite you to look at link mentioned above to see who they are, that is if you are interested. (Link: http://india.gov.in/spotlight/union-council-ministers).

Other components of the Indian government are Lt. Governers and Administers (who govern the union territories of India), the Governors of each state (29 of them in total), the Chief Ministers of each state, the Judges of the Supreme Court, the Chiefs of the Armed Forces, and the Members of the Legislative Assembly, and the Legislative Council. As you can see, it takes a lot of people and a lot of structure to run a country with a population of over a billion people in only 1,269,346 square miles of land.

Similar to the United States, India has a Constitution as well, and it became effective on January 26th, 1950. This happened a year after India became fully independent and was finished with the Partition.  This document, like ours, is a working document and thus has many amendments added on to it. However, they have 98 amendments, while we only have 27 amendments. Both these Constitutions want to secure the Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness for each of its citizens.

Though these countries have a differing style of government, and thus are categorized as different types of countries, there are many similarities between the two. One on of my many trips to India, I remember being in a car and looking out the window and seeing the Chief Minister of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee (read Mo-mo-tah Ban-er-jee) giving a speech at a convention on the side of the street. Of course that street was closed off, but you could still see her on the stage discussing some issue or the other that concerns the people of West Bengal.

Picture Credit: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/01/25/obama-india-arrival/22307343/

What exactly is Fracking?

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Many people are against the practice of fracking due to environmental damage, contamination of the drinking water, and the cause of earthquakes. However, many people argue against fracking without really knowing what fracking is or how it is supposed to be done. The basic idea behind fracking is to use the oil and gas that is trapped in a porous and permeable rock by another rock that acts as a seal, since it is not porous or permeable. This type of formation can be found near State College, as the Marcellus Shale drilling activity occurs to the northwest of the town.

The process of fracking is done as follows. First the gas companies find a place that has a a great reservoir rock, which has the perfect conditions for gas and oil formation. Then, they have to line the location with Fracking mats (special mats that are designed to prevent leakage from the site), and then they begin to drill. The gas companies drill vertically into the ground, following the joints that are already in the rock. Then they begin to drill horizontally to reach the area where the oil or gas is trapped. Once they reach that spot, they remove the drill and insert a steel casing pipe in the hole for the next step. This is called the casing step. Next, the companies pump cement down the whole to stabilize the pipe in the ground. Then a perforation gun is used to perforate the steel pipe throughout its entire length. The holes that are created by the perforating gun are usually small, but do not damage the surrounding rocks, around the reservoir. Next, fracking liquid is poured down the drain. This liquid is mostly water and sand, but it has a few additives, such as hydrochloric acid, sodium chloride, and others. This liquid shoots through the pipe and helps to transfer the sand in the liquid to the cracks in the rocks surrounding the pipe. These sand grains are used to keep the channels that were created open, so oil and gas can pass through it. The cracks that were created in the rocks are fractured again to make the channels bigger, and then the oil and the gas is sucked up through the pipe. The casing and cementing step is usually repeated throughout the process of fracking, to ensure that the process remains isolated from any other well activity or aquifers that may surround the drilling site.

Fracking works because the tiny micro-cracks in the work create the maximum amount of compressional stress in the rock, which helps to bring the oil or the gas towards the pipe. As the cracks get bigger, the stress in the cracks increases. Adding the pressurized fluid to the cracks will also add to the tensional stress of the crack. This causes the crack to grow bring in more gas and oil. Although, this process causes really tiny earthquakes near the area, the earthquake magnitudes are usually a negative value, thus they are not felt by the people near the drilling site. Any minor faults created by the process of fracking extend into the Marcellus Shale, but not in the area surrounding the shale. They are mostly isolated from the aquifers that are near the well.

The well will only give an output of oil and gas during the usable lifetime of the well. As time goes on, the flow rate of the gas and the oil decreases due to a decrease in the concentration of the oil and the gas in the well. Thus over time, the wells will stop emitting oil and gas, and will thus stop the gas companies from pushing the reservoir past its breaking point (so to speak).

I believe that fracking for another source of energy will be a good idea as it utilizes the areas of the Earth in which there is basically free energy just sitting and waiting to be used. Although this is not sustainable, it will help to provide energy to us, while work is done to search for and utilize alternative energy sources efficiently. By the time the oil and gas from the Marcellus shale and other reservoir rocks are used, the world will be in a better place with its energy consumption and with reducing its carbon footprint, with the help of fracking, as more efficient ways are being developed to collect this resource more efficiently and effectively.

The Belief in a Higher Power is Common too

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A common bond between many people is how they pray to a higher power. Christians go to Church, Jewish people attend a Jewish Temple, Muslims worship at a Mosque and Hindus worship at a Hindu Temple. Many of these temples are colorful and intricate, and have carvings of people that decorate the walls. There are many famous temples in India, such as the Lotus Temple (a Bahá’í place of worship), the Golden Temple, and many sites for pilgrimages, such as the Badrinath Temple, and the Kedarnath Temple.

240px-LotusDelhi   Golden-Temple-Jan-07   Badrinath_Temple_-_OCT_2014

Kedarnath_Temple

In all the Hindu temples, there is a main room which houses the deities (in the case of the Hindus) and it is in this room where all the worship ceremonies, also called pujas (read pu-jah-s) are held. People gather in this room, and chant along with the priest, who is reading mantras from our holy book, the Bhagavad Gita (read Bhah-gha-vah-ad Gee-tah). Most start by the priest facing the deities while the audience watches him, as he lights a stick of incense, and begins to sing and/or chant prayers, called mantras (read mahn-trahs) in Sanskrit to the figures of the various deities in the room. In my experience, the older attendees chant the mantras with the preist, while the younger ones sit with their eyes closed and their hands clasped together in the form of prayer. (Of course, the littlest ones are running around and playing either in that room or in the place where food is served after the ceremony, which is generally like a large cafeteria). Once the priest has finished chanting the specific mantras for that ceremony (since we have various deities, we also have various ceremonies to worship and pray to each individual deity), there is sometimes an additional step where the priest hands out flowers to the devotees, and leads them in a ceremony called Anjali (read: ahn-jah-lee). In this ceremony, the devotees repeat a chant that is said by the priest and then they offer the flowers, or the flower petals to the deity after they finish repeating what the priest said. Then, he lights a diya (read dee-yah) which is made of metal, and has a ghee (clarified butter, read gee (with a hard g)) soaked wick. This diya is then lit and waved in front of the deities, while the attendees chant the aarti (read ar-tee) song. This is usually placed on a tray and this tray is passed around to each attendee so they have the chance to wave it in a circular motion and send their prayers to the God in its smoke. Additionally, the smoke serves as a reminder that God is everywhere, and you can feel his love and blessings everywhere. During Aarti, the waving of the flame in front of the Gods is done to the beat of the Aarti song, which is often accompanied by drums, tablas (read tub-lahs), a hand bell, and a conch shell. Finally, at the end of the ceremony, the preist turns to all the attendees (who are standing) and sprinkles water from the Ganga (our holy river, read Gung-gah) over their head. This is to symbolize the spreading of peace and happiness that God’s blessing is giving us for attending this puja. After this, the attendees accept the prashad (read prah-shah-d) which is believed to be blessed by the Gods, and they eat this to gain the full blessings from attending this puja.

Picture Credits:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Temple

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmandir_Sahib

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badrinath_Temple#mediaviewer/File:Badrinath_Temple_-_OCT_2014.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kedarnath_Temple

You think Traffic here is bad…

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Getting stuck in traffic here entails just sitting in your stopped car and trying to will the cars to move. For some people, it may be the event that makes their day horrible. However, the perils of traffic that you face here, are nothing compared to the traffic found on the roads in any city of India. Indian roads are what nightmares for professional drivers are made of. There is only one rule on many Indian roads: there are no rules?

Travelling through India in my cousin’s car, I have seen a multitude of things that would lead to many arrests if they occurred here in America. First, let’s start with the drivers. Many drivers in India get fed up with the amount of traffic on the roads. (It is the second most populous country after all!) So, if their side of the road is backed up, and the other side is free, some of the drivers will just move over into the opposing traffic’s lane, and just continue driving the direction they are headed like it is no big deal. This does not really happen in the big cities, but it happens often on rural roads. For someone who has never seen this before, it can be a very scary experience!!

Next, let’s discuss foot and other traffic. Everything under the sun uses Indian roadway system. In some cases, large meetings of politicians that occur in a civic space, a wedding party, or even a very important person (like President Obama) visiting, will shut down a large section of the road, and drivers will have try and pass the event, by driving on the unpaved part of the road. Cows, stray dogs, goats, rickshaws, peddlers, pedestrians, bikes, motorcycles, bullock carts, three wheelers, trucks, and buses will use the same lane, and even move aggressively to assert their right of way. Therefore, all drivers in India need to be able to stop on a dime, so as not to be at fault for a hit-and-run accident. At some moments, the animals in the streets, cows specifically, will just sit down and rest for a while, causing the drivers to either honk at them until they move, or to go around them.

india-roads-cows

 

The next big thing that Indian drivers face is potholes. In the less developed areas, potholes appear on the road very often and if the vehicle gets stuck in one, there is likely no getting out. These potholes create an obstacle course for the drivers throughout the day, and especially during the wet season. There are even spots where the potholes are so large that they have a loose pieces of rocks that are considerably sized, so as to puncture the tire of the car, if the driver unwittingly drives through them. In the monsoon season, these potholes fill with water, and create little muddy brown ponds for people to avoid, or just drive straight through and not really care. 

25road2The most common sound on an Indian road is the sound of the various cars honking at others that get in their way. Most of the noise comes from small cars trying to get around other small cars, trucks, or buses. However, small cars need to make way for the bigger vehicles to pass, as a common unwritten rule in Indian traffic is: Might is always right. If a bigger vehicle is coming closer and closer, many of the smaller vehicles in front of it will get out of the way as quickly as possible, in order to not get hit.

Finalized Blog Ideas

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For this semester, my blogs will be about two different topics that I am very happy and excited to share with you all. My passion blog for this semester will still be about India, as I love sharing the information about my heritage. It has a numerous topics to discuss, such as history, food, culture, and etc.

In my Civic issues blog, I would like to discuss the important issue of fracking. Although, this topic may at first seem rather limiting, I was thinking about doing a blog post that first explained how fracking works, and then discussing a certain argument each week. However, if I do run out of arguments to discuss, I will try to discuss other factors of environmental change that relates to my major of Geoscience.

My “This I Believe” Podcast

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Throughout history, women have always been seen as the weaker and more naive gender. Thus, we were not allowed to work for the majority of the 19th century. Women’s suffrage and the increasing “allowance” of women in offices has lead to us displaying that we, as a gender and as a population, can do anything that men can do and in 5 inch heels. With the appearance of Rosie the Riveter, and other woman idols across the country, we have gained much headway in the fight for equality, but not much in the way of careers and salary.

While working this past summer, I was training a new intern before I left for college and we were discussing our hourly wages. My hourly wage was $8.88 while his was around $9.30 per hour. Now although this was in two different fiscal years, it still was unfair that he was getting paid more than I was. In an ideal world, we would have to be paid the same amount, while doing the same amount of work.

According to White House figures, we earn, on average, only 77 cents for each individual dollar that a man earns. How does this seem fair in a world that treasures the idea of equality? If we, as Americans, truly treasured equality; would not the salaries of each gender in their respective careers be equivalent as well?

Although women and men choose different career paths, our pay grades differ based biological factors, such as when children are born. We are penalized because of wanting to have a family. Just because we have children, our pay grade does not need to stop increasing. In fact, it should increase more, as we now have a little one or two or as many children as they have to take care of. What is next, the claim that we need to be paid less because we need to menstruate or that women need to be paid less because they are weaker?

Women make up half of the American workforce, so why should we get paid less for doing the same occupation for the same employer with the same education, and the same amount of hours and tenure? Even if all other factors are the exact same, except for the gender, women will still earn less than men. Although in this case, the gender wage gap would be lower than the average pay gap, it still affects women more, which is not fair. This will affect their long term retirement savings, their median income, as well as earn less to care for their family, than men do.

As long as there are inequalities in the wages of men and women; as long as we are seen as the inferior sex; as long as we claim that we live in the Land of Opportunity, based on the assumption of being treated equal in America, we, as women, should fight for the equivalent pay for the same amount of work.  The assumption of us being the weaker and more naive gender should not exist anymore, but rather that we possess the same capabilities as men do given the same set of circumstances.

 

Brainstorming Ideas

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It is the start of a new semester, and the first assignment for English has already gotten me to think long and hard about what I value and believe in. At first, I was not able to discover any deeply held beliefs I had, but after discussing this with my mother, I found that I have several. Upon further reflection of these ideas, I have gotten inspired to use these for my assignment. The first has to do with breaking stereotypes. As I was growing up and watching Bollywood movies in my spare time, a trend was pointed out to me: Most Indian males grow up to engineers of some sort, and most women grow up to be doctors. Thus, in the portrayed society, your gender predetermined your future. I believe that this is a constraint, and that all people should have the freedom of  choice for their occupation, and have the freedom to find and pursue their passion. This would lead to more passionate young people making a difference in the world for better. Another idea I had was that I believe in the power of humor. Hearing a good joke or just being able to laugh at yourself is the best way, at least for me, to turn my day around. Humor has the power to make you smile, as well as help to relieve a lot of stress from most of the day. Everyone has heard the old adage: “Laughter is the best medicine,” and in my experience it has held true. For my last idea, I was thinking about gender equality. Growing up, my parents always told me that “I could do anything I wanted to.” However, as I was more exposed to the world outside my home, I was more prone to seeing ideas that women could not do as much as men. It really annoys me that people believe that women can not do as much as men can because their gender is considered a weakness. I hate that this is a common idea, and believe that women can do anything men can do, but “we do it in high heels!”

For my passion blog, I wanted to continue on with my passion blog from last semester that was about India. It is easy to write about my culture, and all the distinct aspects of my culture that make it as unique and colorful as it is. I love explaining and showing my culture to other people. My other idea would to be to talk about my love for old sitcoms like Friends, I Love Lucy, Dick Van Dyke, and others. I enjoy watching these, and it would be fun to talk about for 10 weeks, as there are various sitcoms I could use.

For my Civic Issues blog, I really want to write about fracking and environmental change as that is relevant to my major, and I am interested in how the fracking causes other issues in the environment. My other topic I was thinking of discussing in this blog is the right to privacy. I believe that it each person has the right to have privacy as long as they do not intend to harm other people with their thoughts. If something dangerous is apparent in their posts, then it should be reported and then tracked based on the threats.