Battle Against Burnout

SUSANNE GRIMALDI

November 24, 1999

Today, we have seen the birth of the alpha female. Women are no longer just mothers but also full-time working women with successful careers. Indeed, a woman’s position in society has changed dramatically; however, is it for the better? Victoria L. Rayner, author of The Survival Guide for Today's Career Women notes the negative consequences associated with this new change: “Today, working women are particularly prone to burnout because of all the demands that are placed on them. The popular belief is that women can sustain a successful career and private life without sacrifice” (qtd. in “Working Women Risk Burnout”). Women are not super heroes; although, we have this tendency to believe they are. Too many demands, like being a good mother and a full-time working woman, will take its toll. Many women have already fell victim to burnout-physical and emotional exhaustion-due to extremely stressful conditions. Dr. Jane Greer, a marriage and family therapist in New York, told client/writer Nicole Wise, “It's only a matter of time till you

compromise the quality of your life, your marriage, and even how you feel about yourself” (qtd. in Wise 1). Unfortunately, many women are unwilling to admit that they are on the verge of a burnout, and Nicole was one of those women. In order to win the battle against burnout, Rayner proposes ten suggestions working mothers can try:

· Break free from your everyday routine by viewing problems in your daily life in a more creative way. Find a different approach to unpleasant situations.

· Be careful not to overextend your energy. Learn to pace yourself. Take more time out for relaxation.

· Give yourself credit and reward yourself when you accomplish something.

· Eat properly. Consuming the right foods will help you think and feel better.

· Participate two or three times per week in a vigorous exercise routine to clear the mind and help let off steam.

· Expand your social life. Plan and spend more time with friends and loved ones who offer support.

· Rest and replenish your energy. Not every minute must be accounted for.

· Take time to find and participate in activities you enjoy. Create a "play sheet" to list all the things you like doing--and do them!

· Set short- and long-term goals to improve your situation. Start by separating your needs from your desires.

· Focus on your needs vs. the desires of others. (qtd. in “Working Women Risk Burnout”).

Women who are experiencing burnout should try at least one of these suggestions because it will result in significant benefits. If a woman takes time out of her busy schedule to exercise two to three times a week

for thirty minutes, she will undeniably feel physically better and will have an abundance of energy. Without a doubt, eating healthier foods, like various fruits and vegetables, will help women to feel emotionally better too; no more guilt trips over eating that McDonald’s cheeseburger last week! Even creating a list of personal goals will be beneficial for working mothers. The easiest way to do this is to write down a long-term goal then break that goal into smaller, more manageable goals. So, for all the working mothers reading this article, try one of Rayner’s suggestions and win the battle against burnout.

-"Women are not super heroes" (original image taken from Google Images; revised by Susanne Grimaldi)

-Woman's hand holding a stress ball (original image taken from Google Images)

THE CORPORATE WOMAN OF THE 1990s

by Jason Alan Weiner (Editor in Chief of Psyched-Out)

Consideration of the sexes and the effect of understanding female/male diversity with respect to occupational choices, occupational conduct, and profession selection climaxed during the last decade and evidently reached a level with the agreement that almost all business gender-specific diversity can be calculated for by other factors such as the time in that position of responsibility and departmental status.

During the middle of the last decade, women who joined the business world are now entering the core ranks of the workplace. There were countless conflicts involving many of those women who entered the work force, which, in turn, brought many important issues regarding gender diversity and equal rights for woman such as differences in salary and opportunities for promotion within the workforce.

Personality traits and values associated with males were similar traits associated to supervisors, whereas the same traits and values regarding women were inconsistentwith traits associated to supervisors. Researchers determined that much of the inconsistencies were due to stereotypical generalizations regarding the assumed behavior of woman such as obedience, non-competitiveness, incapability as a team-player, babbling, etc.

Eventually women determined that in order to be successful in the workplace, they needed to carry similar traits and values of their male counterparts. This meant that the only way they’ll be able to excel is if they behaved like men. For many women, this was a real struggle to deal with. This meant that women had to stop displaying their traditional role as a mother, nurturer, and submissive individual that they were accustomed to for not only most of their lives, but for most of history of the “living world”.

This meant that women couldn’t express themselves naturally or portray themselves as the traditional “woman”. Some may argue that this repression of gender expression is not only discriminatory, but they also feel that the workplace suffers from the absence of a feminine “point of view” which in some business situations has proven to be quite beneficial.

There was a multitude of civil lawsuits and varying degrees of litigation that resulted in unfavorable decisions against women during this time. Many of the women who did have the courage to stand-up against their employers were eventually fired or “let go” There were many cases in which Employers would find other reasons to terminate a woman who felt that she was being discriminated against. One woman, Cliessa Nagle formerly of the firm “Women Haters R Us” tells Psyched-Out the following: “During my employment with ‘Women Haters R Us’, I quickly climbed the corporate ladder to find out that all my hard work and dedication was not only unrecognized, but I was being paid less for doing the same job as my male co-workers. When I consulted with an attorney, he told me I had a very strong case. When it came time to testify in court, “Women Haters R Us” claimed I was being “insubordinate” and “uncooperative” after I brought this to their attention during my employment. In fact, “Women Haters R Us made me feel so uncomfortable at work during the hearings that I became so stressed-out from everything and needed some personal time off. After arriving back to work from my personal time, “Women Haters R Us” told me “They no longer need me and my position was no longer required because “computers” can now do my job” Personally, I feel that they simply used this as another reason to terminate me for “debating the discrimination issue.”

This is just one story of the thousands of professional woman who decided to take action against her company for gender inequality. Many suffered the same or similar fate resulting in losing their jobs, statuses, retirements and many other benefits that related to their profession.

Illegal Immigration From Mexico

Reported by: Chris Nangle

Recently there has been an increase in illegal immigration from Mexico, causing some civil unrest in the bordering states. There have been many different feelings towards the immigration of Mexicans, some were good but most were bad. The government seems to be a little more lenient with how they handle the immigrants when returning them to Mexico, whereas the unsettled citizens seem to have an extremely bad view of the immigrants. These citizens formed Vigilante groups, which performed border patrols that were heavily armed and extremely aggressive. When groups are formed out of anger they tend to be aggressive and out of control, especially when there are many reasons for their anger.The Mexicans flee to our country due to the low wages in their country, and come to America to try and make better money. The amount of money being made in Mexico was enough to make people risk their lives to enter a country where most people resent them being here. From 1982 when Mexico’s wages were at its highest, they fell drastically to almost nothing in 1996. Overall there was a sixty one percent decrease over the twelve-year sample period.

“Despite the hardening of the border, would-be crossers are not giving up. They simply keep trying- some are apprehended more than once in the same day- until they eventually make it across the line.”(Borderless Economy, Barricaded Border; by Peter Andreas). The struggle and pain that these people are willing to endure shows great determination that most people would only dream of having. If you were to see an illegal immigrant on the street, the only difference between them and us will be the color of their skin and language difficulties. They try very hard to follow a set of social norms that they have adapted from being in our country. In most cases they do not want to be here, they need to be here. The money that they make usually is sent home to help protect and feed their families. While here, contrary to popular belief, they help in their communities, unlike the common stereotype that they are ghosts when not working for manual labor “under the table”. Personally, immigrants from Mexico are human beings, as so they should be treated like one. They set a standard that most Americans should follow, hard work, determination and perseverance.

Sexual Disease Trends 1990's

Reported by: Amanda Gates

Sexual transmitted diseases are recognized as a major public health problem in most of the industrialized world. The world health organization (WHO) estimates over 30 million cases or sexual transmitted diseases a year in North America. That is only the curable Sexual transmitted diseases. Sexual transmitted diseases need a lot of attention because most of the time they go untreated. This not only means that you will get worse but you will also infect other people. That is why STD s are such a huge problem. They go uncured and people are totally unaware they have them and they just keep getting spread around. Adolescents ages 10-19 years and young adult's ages 20-24 years are at an extremely high risk for acquiring STD s. Reason being, they are more likely to have multiple sex partners rather then a single long term partner. Having multiple sex partners and unprotected intercourse puts them at high risk for chlamydia tachometric, and young females may have a risk of increased susceptibility to infection due to increased cervical entropy and lack of immunity. During the past two decades premarital sexual intercourse with young women has steadily increased putting a large amount of young women at high risk. Good news was that the rates of gonorrhea in 10-19 year olds has steadily decreased from the 1980's but unfortunately went back up during 1993-1994. The 10-14 age groups increased from 50.0 in 1993 to 50.4 in 1994. However, the 15-19 age group went from 741.1 in 1993 to 763 in 1994. it has been reported that adolescent females have had a higher gonorrhea rate then adolescent males.

One of the most well known and most feared STD to attract is AIDS also known as HIV. Once a person attracted the virus they will have it for the rest of their lives and eventually die from it. Mary Fisher is a women who attracted the virus and speaks publicly about it. She attracted the virus from her husband. They have been married for many years and eventually got a divorce. Mary's ex husband calls her on the phone one day to tell her that he tested HIV positive and she should go get tested. Mary went and got tested right away and found out that she too was HIV positive. Mary's children went and got tested and fortunately they tested HIV negative. Approximately 74.000 new HIV infections have occurred in 1997 in North America alone. This just goes to prove that anyone anywhere can be HIV positive and not even be aware. This virus kills people and affects people's lives in a very bad way. Most young adolescents have no idea the consequences of having intercourse at a young age. That is why if your are not responsible to handle the consequences then you should not be having intercourse. It takes 30 seconds to run the rest of your life. Anytime that somebody sees something unusual on their body parts they should get it check out immediately it could be nothing but you would feel a lot better getting it check out and taken care of.

The Comeback: A Look At How Cultural Psychology Plans To Make A Big Return

Reported by Steven Bostancic – Wednesday, December 2nd, 1993

Reports have recently surfaced showing that cultural psychology, a form of the science which focuses on the impact cultural and social practices have on the human conscious, is set to make a return to the psychology world later this year. While the reasons for this sudden spark in interest remains unclear to some, given that it last saw popularity in the late 1970s, psychologists such as Richard Schweder hope that it will make up for the shortcommings of cross-cultural psychology.

“The main finding of a universalistic approach to cross-cultural psychology has been the repeated failure to replicate Western laboratory findings in non-Western settings.” Schweder exdplains in the Psychological Review, “Therefore, a major goal of cultural psychology is to have divergent cultures inform basic psychological theories in order to refine and/or expand these theories so that they become more relevant to the predictions, descriptions, and explanations of all human behaviors, not just Western ones.”

The main difference here between the two branches of study is the use of culture to form a better understanding of their respective fields. Cross-cultural psychology will use it to test the process involved in psychological studies. Cultural psychology, however, only uses local culture to conclude how it shapes the process.

But like all forms of psychology, it has come under fire from critics that claim it sterotypes certain cultures. However, evidence from various studies support that cultural psychology in fact reduces some of those common sterotypes and suggest that these crirics are mislead by unproven findings.

What all of this will lead to is still undetermined. One can hope that answers will come about with in time. For now, it’s up to the psychologists around the globe to reexamine the wonders of cultural psychology and gain a new understanding of culture and it’s effects on the human mind.

One thing is sure though: cultural psychology is here to stay.

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Original Art Work by: Steven Bostancic