A Mis Queridos Lectores

Ten facts about gender inequality in business

Gender is a central concept in modern societies. However, gender gaps are still a wide-spread phenomenon. While gender gaps in education and health have been decreasing remarkably over time and their differences across countries have been narrowing, gender gaps in the labour market and in politics are more persistent and still vary largely across countries.

The following ten facts, written by Paola Profeta (Associate Professor in Public Economics at Università Bocconi), help shed light on the gender-gap problem:

Gender gaps have historical roots: These roots can be traced back to the organization of the family and to traditional agricultural practices.

Culture matters in determining gender gaps: Gender stereotypes are well-established, both among men and among women.

Men and women have different attitudes and behaviours: On average women are significantly less likely than men to make risky choices and to engage competition.

Maternity does not explain it all: There is no trade-off between fertility and female employment – but maternity is a penalty in the labour market.

Education is the first engine of gender equality: Women and men are currently equally educated, and women often surpass male educational attainments in developed countries.

Gender gaps in employment and the glass ceiling are different phenomena - although they often go hand-in-hand. 

Labour demand is as important as individuals’ choices: Firms’ decisions, employers’ attitudes and beliefs, are as important as individuals’ incentives and choices.

Institutions play a crucial role in supporting female employment: Family policies, parental leave, and formal child care provisions may help supporting female labour supply.

Institutions play a crucial role in determining the glass ceiling: How to promote female leadership and the presence of women in top positions is a highly debated issue.

Women’s empowerment and economic development are interrelated: Economic development improves women’s conditions and reduces inequality – and the involvement of women in the economy is a key engine for growth.

For more information about gender inequality, check out Paola Profeta’s article on the OUPblog.

Image Credit: ‘Office, Tax, Business’, Image by FirmBee, CC0 Public Domain, via Pixabay.

6 acts of literary kindness

In order to celebrate World Kindness Day, set up in 1998 by the World Kindness Movement, we have put together a list of six acts of kindness by prominent literary figures.

One of the more widely known acts of literary charity, J.M. Barrie gave all of the rights to “Peter Pan,” his original play, to the Great Ormond Street Hospital (a children’s hospital) in London. Royalties from all productions, books, movies, and other iterations of the story still go to the hospital. The cast of the original play also started a tradition, in which they came to the hospital and played the nursery scene for the children there.

J.K. Rowling co-founded the Children’s High Level Group (CHLG) with Baroness Emma Nicholson in 2005, and auctioned off a special edition of her book The Tales of Beedle the Bard for the charity in 2007, raising nearly £2 million. She also supports a number of charities and causes through her charitable trust, Volant. Volant offers assistance to projects that are related to alleviating social deprivation, with an emphasis on women’s and children’s issues.

Charles Dickens was one of Great Ormond Street’s earliest benefactors, (it seems great authors think alike). In April, he published an article entitled ‘Drooping Buds’ in his magazine Household Words. He described how one third of babies born in London each year died before their first birthday, and emphasized that the Hospital was the only institution dedicated to saving this appalling waste of life. He called to his readers for support, and their enthusiastic response helped to keep the Hospital open and expand the base of its supporters. In 1858, Dickens was called on to help rescue the project again. He responded by giving a whole evening’s performance of his most famous passages on children, and raised enough money to enable the hospital to buy the house next door, and effectively double in size. He continued featuring the hospital in his creative works, and left a legacy behind that continues to benefit the hospital today.

Like Jean Valjean in Les Misérables, Victor Hugo helped the poor by going into his own pocket. He started at home, providing for his estranged wife and his sons who didn’t earn much money on their own. He instructed his cook to feed beggars who showed up at his front door. Every other Sunday for about 14 years, he served “Poor Children’s Dinners” to about 50 hungry youngsters in his neighborhood. According to biographer André Maurois, personal charity accounted for about a third of Hugo’s household expenses during his peak earning years.

Maya Angelou passed away in 2014, and her trust now continues her legacy with contributions to many different charities. Before her death, however, she was an honorary board member for the Legacy of Hope Foundation. It was created to provide medical care and facilities for underserved children and communities around the world.

Judy Blume, beloved young adult and children’s author, has spent most of her career fighting against censorship with the National Coalition Against Censorship.  She also is the founder and trustee of The Kids Fund, a charitable and educational foundation which purports to facilitate communication between children and parents, and is financed by the proceeds of her publication Judy Blume Diary: The Place to Put Your Own Feeling.

Image: J.K. Rowling at the White House, via the Executive Office of the President. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Fictional Notes and Letters

                Notes, journal entries, lost letters, a book tucked into the back corner of the store—written hints and exposition can show up in storytelling across many forms. Given how useful and easy as it is to divulge information through perfectly scattered journal entries or a conveniently timed newspaper article this form of sharing information is a common trope across storytelling. Because of this, it can feel cheap or unearned.

                So here’s how to use written hints without making your readers feel cheated:

Don’t overuse it

Unfortunately this is the long and the short of it. The more information you have through written mediums, the less realistic or earned it will feel. If you can, keep this trope down to once or twice in a piece. If you can convey that information another way, choose that instead.

2. Create purpose behind its creation

Not only does the writing have to have the relevant information you need to convey, but it has to have a purpose for existence. Remember that people write notes to remember something, something they’d be likely to forget. If you can’t think of a reason someone would need to remember (or would believe they might forget) a piece of information, don’t convey it on a note. Journals are made to review someone’s day or emotions, it’s unlikely someone would journal about the government’s secrets (and even more so, scatter the pages around in an order for the protagonists to find to pace out said information—I’m sorry, I’m throwing just a little bit of shade at the indie horror community ;))

                If it’s not news worthy, it shouldn’t be in the news, etc. and so on. Think about why your written material was created, and by who, and how it ended up where it did.

3. Place it behind a barrier

This is a bit of a sneaky trick, but hiding your written hint behind an ‘effort wall’ is going to make it feel so much more earned to gain. Maybe the journal they’re looking for is within a locked desk, and the characters have to break in to get it. The sticky note with the password is in the suit pocket of the antagonist (they just happened to leave at the dry cleaner that morning). The binder of secrets is behind three security guards and a locked door.

                Any effort your protagonists have to make to gain the information is so much better than just happening to find it, and could trick readers into believing the information was more difficult to gain than it was.

4. Don’t make it too convenient

Lastly, make sure the characters don’t just learn what they were looking for, but a little bit less, and a little something else. If they need to know exactly who was at the party in 2005, maybe they don’t find a list of names, but rather a photo album of people they then have to do a bit more work to identify. The written hint should be that—a hint, a start of a greater solution. If it’s the end, a lot more effort should have come before.

                Good luck!

Mastery Journal: Entertainment Industry Professional

Business Storytelling & Brand Development has taught me to look the business world from another perspective. It is not a simple thing to be out there among businesses trying to get the attention from customers, because we know we need our customers to probe that we have something to give to them that is unique, special, created with our own hands, and really has a meaning for us.

How do we survive among all the businesses that are out there selling the same product? How do we convince the customer that our product is good, is worth the try, and has a unique value?

Business Storytelling and Brand Development has the answer. You start by researching, researching and researching; the same way as Marty Neumeier said about The Brand Gap in Focus, Focus, Focus. Research and focus are the two elements directly related to improve your sales, and secure customers to your product.

However, selling is not only about research and focus, but also strategy.

How do you want your product to look for? What kinds of feelings do you want to inspire in customers when looking for your product or service? Does your product have emotional power to call the customers? 

Brand Development is the answer, and Storytelling is the best tool you can use to improve the presence of your product in the market. The product will not sell by itself, if there is not a cool image of it either verbally or visually. Visually is the way to sell because it involves all of our senses, how the product looks, and what the logo means, what the tagline says about the brand. Does the product inspire you? Does the product make you extend your hand to grab it from the shelf?

However, it is not only how the product looks on the outside, but also how the corporate culture represents that image. Does the company deliver a passion for the product; do they create a strong vision and mission as Zappos does with its tagline “Delivering happiness”? That product that is outside deliver a “unique statement” that stands out from the crowd and the other businesses? Does that corporate company know why they are there? What is the challenge? What is their objective? What is their brand promise, and finally, do they answer three basic questions: Who are you? What do you do? and Why does it matter?

When the company answers all those questions, we know that it is on its way to success, and starts to built a good foundation to stand out from the crowd.

Next Scene?

Please?

I don't like that one!

Can you pass to the next one?

If you don't mind! Cause it sees to me you are directing the scenes right now.

By the way, the next scene would be under the cave.

Also, look at the mirrors on the sides, when you drive.

Secondly, under the same circumstances than writing a story leads you to way too many paths according to the flow of writing, and the purpose of the story, and later on editing it, according to what makes sense within the story....

It is the same way, with the thinking process in sicology. Sicology might be able to build all those scenarios according to a process. Really, the only thing you need is an image, and present that image in the context of the meaning, and you can lead from there. 

What are your images? Would be the next question, on the other end of the rope, not only because also the patient and the professional get attached into a situation, but also because that will express the thinking process of the professional in that regards. There is a process, an action and a reaction in terms of a process.

What is the thinking process in a tight? On the other side of the rope? Would be awesome to talk about it.

La Felicidad

Te estoy diciendo que seras feliz! Sueltala! tienes que soltarla, y le dio un trancazo en la cabeza! Tu no entiendes! No estas apto para comprenderlo ahora, tienes que dejarla ir porque el futuro se avista mejor si la dejas ir hoy, y le solto con injundia otro punetazo en el ojo. Hay veces que las cosas son asi! Vienen Asi y tienen que ser asi!, y le solto otro golpe en el otro ojo para que entendiera la cruda realidad. Tu no lo entiendes! Y tienes que entenderlo, hay veces que tenemos que entender como la realidad se presenta! Y le solto otra patada en la boca, y ya tirado en el suelo, y con los labios viscozos llenos de ketchup que parecia malviciado. No lo entiendes? Replica ella, no lo entiendes? que para tener la felicidad necesitas perder la vision y la facultad de hablar?

Writing Tips

Scene Checklist

Does your scene include everything it should?

「 note: this is for the editing stage; remember, first draft is for the writer & editing is for the reader; get it down before worrying about these things unless it is just for practice 」

✧

ACTIONS

↦ are the actions necessary?

↦ are the verbs as descriptive as possible?

↦ do the actions match the character? why did the character take those actions?

↦ are the actions clear?

DIALOGUE

↦ what is the purpose for each statement?

↦ does each statement move the story forward?

↦ are the dialogue tags as descriptive as possible?

↦ does the dialogue match the character? why did the character say those things?

EMOTIONS

↦ are each character’s emotions clearly stated or implied?

↦ are the character’s emotions justifiable?

↦ how does the character’s emotions affect their actions?

LANGUAGE

↦ are you showing or telling?

↦ does the scene have clarity & coherence?

↦ does the scene have the desired tone, mood, & voice?

PURPOSE

↦ is this scene necessary? (if removed, would the story still make sense?)

↦ are there stakes at risk in this scene? is there tension?

↦ has something changed from the beginning to the end of the scene?

↦ possible purposes: advance the plot? reveal character goal? increase tension? develop character? reveal conflict? react to conflict? explain backstory? foreshadow? build world? reinforce theme, tone, or mood?

SETTING

↦ will your reader clearly know the setting throughout the scene?

↦ room? house? city? state? country? planet? galaxy?

↦ time of day? season of year? weather?

↦ chronologically within story?

STRUCTURE

↦ is there a distinct beginning, middle, and end?

↦ is the chronological order of events clear?

↦ does the scene smoothly transition from one to another?

✧

DWIGHT SWAIN’S SCENE VS SEQUEL

↦ Swain believed scenes should repeat these sequences in order to keep the interest of the reader piqued

↦ Swain says “a scene is a unit of conflict lived through by character and reader” & “a sequel is a unit of transition that links two scenes”

↦ scene: goal, conflict, disaster

⟿ goal: character’s decision to do something for a purpose

⟿ conflict: something opposing the character’s ability to achieve goal

⟿ disaster: a disruption or turning point to keep the readers hooked

↦ sequel: reaction, dilemma, decision

⟿ reaction: character’s emotional/analytical reaction to the disaster

⟿ dilemma: what should the character do now

⟿ decision: what does the character do now

↦ does your scene have one of these three-part patterns?

DWIGHT SWAIN’S MRU

↦ MRU: motivation-reaction units

↦ these are for alternating sentences or paragraphs

↦ motivation: objective thing your character externally senses (what happens?)

↦ reaction: subjective response your character internally has (how does your character react? feeling, reflex, action, dialogue?)

↦ this is very difficult to follow, especially without practice, but it is a way to guarantee your reader’s interest & attention

Capitulo 6: El Libro

Como conociste a mi mama? preguntó Stephanie mientras se recuesta en la cama al anochecer 

En el río, en la luvia, un rayo cae y la luz hace su presentación, dijo el papá mientras recorre las sábanas para cubrir el cuerpo de la niña.

Era Hija del Rayo? infirió la menor mirando la imagen de su presentación.

Se puede decir. Por la potencia de su luz, contesta el papá

Cómo se quedó? inquirió intranquila la niña 

Le dije que si volvía, le escribiria con mis propias manos unos cuentos y se los leeria todos los dias en el parque 

Volvió?

A veces 

Que pasó?

Los escribimos los dos, y después los leíamos los dos, dijo mientras apagaba la luz, y cerraba la puerta de la habitación.

Claudia

Claudia

Oiga volteé en esa esquina donde dice Laurel, por favor dijo Claudia.

Es usted tan viejito que no alcanza a ver los rótulos de las calles y le tienen qué anticipar las vueltas… Por qué no usa lentes?…

Y Claudia soltó la carcajada.

Cada vez que podía, Claudia echaba en cara su juventud contra mi supuesta vejez, pero era su forma de divertirse conmigo, y admito, a costa mía.

No me importaba ni tenia un conflicto con la edad, de hecho la disfrutaba, al encontrar cosas que en otros tiempos me detenían de ser realmente lo que era: único, especial, con una personalidad que me encantaba. Y debo decir que los temas favoritos de Claudia y Jessica era la juventud y la vejez, cuando podían y sobre todo cuando ambas se juntaban a hacer equipo.

Si los dinosaurios existeieran le dirían… Amigo cómo estás? decía Claudia y si las montañas hablaran dirían pies que por aquí te vieron pasar, secundaba Jessica; si las estrellas se contaran a sí mismas, remataba Claudia, le preguntarían la última cuenta…

Por qué?

Porque antes de las estrellas ya estaba usted!!!!

Jajajajajajaja…

Muy graciosa, muy graciosa…

-Ah, Ya vamos a prosopopeyas?

-Whhhhhat?, exclamaba consternada Claudia

-La suya!!!! gritaba Jessica… Ay por si…

-Jessica te pasaste, reclamaba Claudia, te pasaste…

Muy graciosa, muy graciosa, prorrumpía yo.

Yaya?

Ya le he dicho que no me llame Yaya, decía Claudia.

Yaya porque te dicen Yaya en tu casa?

Ya sé. Porque tanto desesperabas a tu mamá en la cocina que te decía… Ya! Ya! y te aventaba el palote, o sería por eso que cuenta Jessica que te juntaba jugar karate con los hombres y movidas tus manos en posición de karate y decías IA! IA! IA! IA!; o porque tu mamá cuando estabas a punto de nacer decía cansada y con las últimas ganas y en desesperación… ya! ya!

Eres un fastidio y dolor para hombres y mujeres… Algún día cambiarás, hija mía? Te quieres confesar?

- De padre usted no tiene nada! refunfuñaba Claudia

- Lo soy y de dos hijos muy bonitos, hechos con Herdez

- Herdez?

-Hechos cooon amoorr, con toda confianza es Herdezzzz- Usted está loco!

- De poeta y loco todos tenemos un poco

- Usted nunca pierde, verdad?

- Todo lo aprendí de tíiiiiii (puedo cantar?) Todo lo aprendí de tíiii

- Ehe esa es una canción de Ana Barbara!!! Esa es un canción de Ana Bárbara! gritaba exaltada Jessica

-Ay la baba! Este no es el concurso de Adivina por los 64 mil… jugaba Claudia…. Y todos nos poníamos a reír. Jajjajajajaa

Así pasaban la bromas, por momentos, de entre las innumerables del día, multiplicados por mil doscientas lunas que eran tres años, tres meses.

Ese era el juego preferido, ver quién tenía más astucia para hacer va mal al otro, entre el cariño, el afecto y el trabajo.

Cualquier destino, por largo y complicado que sea, consta en realidad de un solo momento: el momento en el que el hombre sabe para siempre quién es.

Jorge Luis Borges, “Biografía de Tadeo Isidoro Cruz”, El Aleph (via denisesoyletras)