Recommended Market Analysis of Buffalo Bisons
Quantitative analysis:
1.
Segmentation by age:
60% of the customers are older than 38 years. The oldest customers are 46 years old
30% are between 20-30 years old
10% are younger than 20.

Segmentation by gender:
70% of the customers are males
Only 30% are females

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2.
All you can eat – 20% of total packages; 14.35% of total tickets; 24.85% of total gross revenues; 15% of total net revenues.
Family four pack – 46% of total packages; 36.8% of total tickets; 41% of total gross revenues; 34% of total net revenues.
Flex pack – 34% of total packages; 48.8% of total tickets; 34.18% of total gross revenues; 51% of total net revenues.

3.
Area 14201 can be characterized by low-income single, single parent and family units. This area is also very ethnically diverse and has relatively low home-ownership rates.

Accordingly, we should focus on low-cost-high-value offerings, i.e., emphasising the possibility to get entertainment (and a possibility for better integration through participation in local sport events) and dine at the same reasonable price.

4.
Fixed cost: $500 base payment for Tele-Tickets

Variable costs:
10% commission for Tele-Tickets on the selected package
All-you-can-it package: $12.50 (60% of revenue) food cost
Family-four package: $6 (44.4%) food cost

5.
Family four package:
Break even at 21 packages
Profit: 361$

Flex package:
Break even at 6 packages
Profit: 418$

Qualitative analysis:
a. the best package to sell under the above mentioned demographic factors, including the fact that 50% of the purchasers have at least two children, is the family four package, which offers good costs for family leisure and a fast-food meal.
b. the most profitable package, both in terms of quantity and margin, is the flex package.

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Introduction
Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) is a Mountain View, CA based internet services company. Its main course of business is focused on indexing websites and linking users’ searches (according to keywords) to corresponding content in those websites that seems to match the search. This free service, offered in 117 languages (as of October 2008) has turned Google websites to a top online destination and its brand to the world’s best known name. Leading Fortune’s 100 Best Places to Work list, Google employs 20,133 full-time employees as of September 30, 2008 (Google Inc., 4)

Google’s income is mainly based on advertising revenues; the latter account for 97% of total revenues, composed from paid click ads on its own websites and Goggle Network web sites (66 and 31 percent in 2008, respectively) (Goggle Inc., 13).

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The company’s business method is rather simple: each time a user clicks on an ad, Google collects a payment from the advertiser. If the ad appeared in one of Google Network web sites, Google will share the revenue with the site.

Google offers various online services which Datamonitor (22) summarized in six main groups:
a. Google.com services: e.g., Google WebSearch (the internet’s leading search engine, Google Image and Book Search, Google Finance, Google News and video search (Google Video and YouTube)
b. Communication, Collaboration and Communities: e.g., Google Docs & Spreadsheets, Calendar, Gmail and Blogger
c. Downloadable applications: e.g., Google Desktop and Toolbar
d. Google GEO: Google Earth, Google Maps and Google Sketchup
e. Google Mobile: mobile applications of some online products such as Google Maps, Gmail and News
f. Others: mostly search and advertising services such as Google Adwords and AdSense.

Nevertheless, as mentioned earlier, Google does not generate much revenues from most of its services; its various advertising (mostly word-ads) platforms is the main source of income. Unlike most of its competitors, Google’s business concept makes it an attractive partner also for small businesses and websites.

Established in 1998 by two Stanford graduates, Google is now a public company (first IPO in the NASDAQ on August 2004) with a market capitalisation of $94.46 billion.

With its diversified product portfolio, the company competes, although not always leads, mainly against other software and internet giants such as Microsoft, Yahoo!, Time Warner AOL and eBay.

Financial strengths and concerns
The data mentioned above reflects outstanding financial performance, usually well above the industry benchmark. However, the 5-year analysis does not weigh properly the effects of the recent trends in both financial and underlying markets and the evidence of an economic slowdown.

Google’s ratios reveal a low dependency on debt levering, a possible indication of limited exposure to money market trends. Its high margins, as well as returns on capital and employees also look pretty efficient management and investments.

However, due to its exposure to small and medium businesses and a relatively high receivables turnover, it is possible to Google will experience a relatively high bad debt expense in the near future.

The most significant change in Google, which can be already seen in its 2008 reports, is a significant decline in growth; during the first three quarters of 2008 Google’s yearly growth (earning per share, quarterly average) was 27%, compared to an average of about 48% on Q1-3/07, a decrease of 64%. This is a major concern, especially due to the fact that the company’s revenues are almost not diversified and that Google invest in numerous initiatives which do not generate any material cash flows (for example, Google has almost doubled its R&D budget in 2007 to about $2.2 billion).

Projected Pro-forma statements for one year
As seen in the table below, Google’s growth in revenues was decreased by an annual average of 30% throughout 2006-2008. As mentioned before, 2008 growth is exacted to decease by 48%.

If this trend will continue, we should expect an annual growth rate of 20% to about $23.4 billion.

Summary of financial performance
While being innovative and courageous in its business activities, Google’s financial management seems rather conservative and serves as a highly effective backbone to the internet giant.

Google’s decline in growth should be considered in respect to the macro and the conditions in the internet services industry, in which Google still outperforms.

Economic slowdown will most probably lead to a decline in advertising budgets. Google may see a decline in revenues, but it is also possible that its rather cheap and effective advertising services will be seen more attractive.

The company’s 2008 Q3 report show an improvement in cash flows, assets and liabilities management.

Necessary improvements are still required in several fields, including its increasing accounts receivables.

Opportunities and recommendations
The high-tech industry is heavily based on long-term investments. Start-up companies, which develop future trends in the industry, are this extremely vulnerable to changes in money markets due to their high R&D costs. The result is a devaluation of many companies despite their potential.

Google is a well established company and a leader in its market, but does not succeed to generate material cash flows from operations other than advertising in its own and partners’ websites. Unlike some of its competitors, such as Microsoft, Google’s M&A activities were based on purchasing established internet services, while retaining its costly R&D “in-house”.

It would be advised that the company will try to take advantage of the recent devaluations of companies and use its more than $1.7 billion free cash flows (Google Inc., 12) to purchase premature start-up establishments, in particular those which will enable a faster diversification of its revenues portfolio.

In addition, the company has weak presence in the social networking domain, especially in English speaking markets (Datamonitor, 25). A major acquisition of an existing provider is needed here, although it would be less attractive in financial terms.

These investments should have relatively limited impact on Goggle’s short-term income from advertising operations. However, by opening new operational platforms they can provide a more diversified revenue structure.

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I am going to compare and contrast four theories of deviance, focusing now on their main questions:

For the Strain Theory it is – why do people violate social norms and rules? For the Cultural Transmission Theory it is why do people in different societies deviate from the social norms in different ways? For the confliction theory it is –what is the way of structuring the society where certain groups placed in a good light, and other are considered to be deviant? For the Theory of Labeling it is – in what way types of behavior and people are determined as deviant?

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Deviance (deviation) – behavior that differs from the norms or accepted social standards and is condemned by the society.

The theory of strain and anomie, presenting that deviant behavior holds that people are more likely to pursue illegitimate means to attaining culturally prescribed goals when they are blocked from accessing the institutionalized means to these goals, allows us to consider deviance as the result of the social pressure, but not of the negative attitude to the social values, standards, and goals attaining, highly appreciated within the measures of this culture. This means that the theory leaves the chance for criminals, implying the necessity of reorganization or society in order to approach to the ideal of democracy and equality of rights.

Still comparing this concept with the Cultural Transmission Theory we can see several disadvantages of the previous one. First, strain theory was determined by the author to analyze different pattern of adaptation (conformity innovation, ritualism, retreatism, rebellion) to the disjunction between the emphasis on cultural goals and institutional means. Saying that conformism, in particular, implies adjustment to the accepted ways of achieving the goals, whereas conformity in different subcultures may cause adaptation to the previously accepted deviant norms within this community. That means that previous conception does not work in the community where deviant behavior, norms, values are considered as favorable, in this way settling definite rewards or punishment that determine a type of behavior. And all previous indexes make no cense when person gets to the society different sub-cultural features are transmitted across the generations (explains the cause of investigation about student crimes during several years when the citizens changed and the rates of crime remained the same). The labeling theory claims that people care much more about estimation of the action than about its actual relevancy. One of the main statements of Labeling is similar to the Confliction’s pattern, saying that deviation is caused by the possibility of the powerful social groups to settle certain behavior standards (and benefit from that) and the person violating these rules is labeled as a criminal, sick, reckless, outsider etc. which undoubtedly changes the attitude to this person. This is a convenient way to control less influential social groups, just as it was with dark-skinned people in America (when they were killed and persecuted without the obvious deviant reason). Also daily we face the situations where some social rules are broken (students smoking heavy cigarettes, infidelity, bribes, homosexuality, which is by the way very critical issue, etc.) we accept it as normal. Still after the emphasis on one of this problem in the particular situation, the attitude changes opposite.

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Research Methods and Sources Used by Students When Conducting Researches
It used to be that when studying at the university or any other institution of higher education, a student was given all the information needed in class by the lecturer. Thus, as it can be seen, the responsibility on the efficiency of a course laid mostly on the teacher him/herself. Though, the times have changed and today, starting even at high school, teachers provide students with only with surface knowledge. Now, the students are expected to be able to effectively look for the information, filter it and then use it for studying. Such state of things made it very important for every student to know how to make a research that is in fact, very difficult. In my paper I would like to present the basic broad research steps that should be used by college students when conducting researches. As well as we will see that nowadays the students actually do follow them.

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When a topic for the research is assigned one should firstly choose a plan that will be used for the research. For the convenience, I would like to divide my paper in four parts that will talk about the phases of researching. Each of these parts will be discussed separately in details later on in the paper. These parts are as follows: Instruction, methodological issues and directions for the future research discussion of relevant literature, and summary, implications and discussion (Bourner, 1996,3-4).

To begin with a student should be carefully and in detail instructed on the topic of his future research. This fact can be looked at from two sides, from one point it may be difficult to have to conduct the research on the topic somebody else has picked out. Though, in real life it is even harder for a student to come up with the research topic than work on the proposed one (Denham, 2003). When being instructed the students has to be told the size and format of the research he/she is expected to do, as well as, he/she should be provided with the information on such points as: the citation style for the research, number of sources needed as well as what kind of the sources are applicable, etc (Cohen, 2007).

The next stage I would like to discuss is the methodologies for the research. The methodology or design of a research plays a vital role in its success of failure. There are a lot of research methods that I would rather choose not to present here. However, I would like to present some steps that one should go through when designing the research. Firstly, the problem is developed, then the unit of analysis should be chosen and measure should be taken. Secondly, the method a research will be conducted in is chosen. After that one should decide measures and procedures, such as questionnaire/survey or experimental treatments, pilot testing, and the actually field work (EDF 5481 METHODS OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH, 2001). Upon completion of that block of tasks a researcher usually moves to coding the obtained data, putting it into the paper format with explanations and writing an executive summary of the research (this step of the research will be discussed in more details lower).

Somewhere in the middle of planning the methodology of the research a student finds and then discusses the relevant literature (Lane, 1996). When saying “Literature” one had to remember that this word includes everything relevant that is written on the needed topic. Though, it is important to understand that the literature should be up-to-date and come through a trustworthy source. Mostly, when having to research students contact such sources as: books, journal articles, newspaper/magazine articles, historical records, government reports, theses and dissertations, and of course – the Internet. Though, it can be said, that the sources that are mostly used are journal articles, books, government reports and the Internet. Each of these types of sources has its advantages and disadvantages.

The popularity of such sources within students can be explained as follows. To begin with, the journal articles tend to be up-to date, a book gives a deeper insight into the matter, though it may not be that relevant because it takes a very long time to publish a book. Today, not many students use text books for researches because a text book carries out a different role that is teaching. However, at times text books help a student find necessary topics and give a good start for the future research (Moore, 2000). The Government/corporate reports get published fast and rather often, thus can be a very efficient source. Though, of course, the fastest and easiest way to obtain information is the Internet, however the information obtained this way should be double checked in order to avoid presenting wrong facts (Hart, 2001).

To sum my paper up I would like to make a short summary. In fact, creating a summary is also a big part of working on a research. When it comes to the research a summary should not be confused with literature review (The Research Process – 5 Steps to Success, 2008). These two concepts are alike, though are absolutely different (Rowntree, 1998, ch. 9). Although you need to summarize relevant research, it is also vital that you evaluate this work, show the relationships between different works published before, and show how it relates to your work. The summary step in the research process is significant and it takes a long time to complete it because there is nothing more difficult than managing to fit the whole research into a page or even less of a text.

Above I have presented the basic steps students should go through when conducting researches as well as showed what sources are more popular with students. The research process is long and thorny, as well finding information for it tends to be very complicated at time. Though, it has to be remembered that this process is also rewarding and should not be looked at as only another tiresome task that has to be completed for the university.

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Kohlberg’s Idea About Moral Development
Kohlberg’s idea regarding moral development can be clearly seen in his proposed stages of moral development. Stages of moral development are said to be planes of moral adequacy that were developed by the author to provide the explanation of the moral reasoning.

Stages development was inspired by the work of Jean Piaget, as well as great interest and surprise how children reacted to moral dilemmas.

There are six stages assorted in three levels, which are pre-conventional, conventional and post-conventional. There are two stages at each level. First level concerns obedience and punishment orientation and self-interest. It can most vividly be describe with two questions: how can I avoid the punishment and what is that into me? The bright example of the stage one regarding punishment avoidance, is when the bad action is judged in accordance with the fact how terrible I the punishment. The second stage reveals the interest in other people deeds only if they concern the person personally: you stepped on my foot and I will step on yours.

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This pre-conventional level is extremely common in children, even though adults can also show signs of this level. The morality of the action is judged by its direct consequences.

The next conventional level contains interpersonal conformity and accord and social-order and authority maintenance orientation. The third stage is tightly connected with social roles that people perform and their reactions to the approval or disapproval of their actions by other people. And according to which role person chooses to perform, he or she acts as a good or bad boy or girl. Respect and gratitude are very important notions. Stage four about authority is about the fact that it is important to obey laws, social conventions and dictums, because those play a great role in maintaining the functional society. The main idea is that the ideals should be stated and it should be definitely prescribed what is right and what is wrong. To violate the law is morally wrong, as if one person does- everyone probably would. Therefore the essential notion at this stage is culpability, which separates good things from bad ones.

Conventional level is most common for adults and adolescents. At this stage, actions morality is judged by comparing them to societal expectations and views.

And the final post-conventional level is also known as the principled level and concerns social contract orientation and universal ethical principles. Social contract orientation, or stage five, views individuals to have various values and opinions. Laws are viewed as social contracts. And the general idea is said to be: greatest good for the greatest number of people. This can be achieved through compromising and majority decision. An example is the democratic government.

And the last stage of the final level that is universal ethical principles driven concerns moral reasoning that is based upon abstract reasoning. It claims that law is valid just in case when it is grounded on justice and laws that are unjust can be disobeyed.

Even though the idea of Kohlberg’s moral development was rearranged into six stages, on practice, the author had difficulties finding people who used it, as well as it appeared that people rarely or never reach the final stage of moral development.

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What exactly is pain? A scientific definition would have it that pain is a “sensation of discomfort that may lead to distress and feelings of urgency resulting from stimulation of specialized nerve endings” (FASS, 20). Few people, though, exclaim, “Oh, my specialized nerve endings!” upon stubbing their toes. More often, people vocalize how and what they are feeling when they are in “pain” from stubbing their toes. For all pain, although sharing the commonality of being caused by “stimulation of special nerve endings,” manifests itself in different ways. “Pain is a perception, not a physical entity” (Carstens, vii). Nobody can be sure that they are feeling precisely the pain of anybody else. Therefore, it is impossible to define one single sensation that every person interprets as “pain.” Each person must determine for himself/herself which of his/her personal experiences and feelings constitute pain.

But because there are standard words used to communicate pain, people can at least convey to each other that they are in pain. The extent of that pain, though, is significantly harder for people to express to each other. So despite a shared language, no one person can precisely understand the pain of anyone else. The inherent incomprehensibility of other people’s pain notwithstanding, most people accept without question that what their fellow humans are feeling is pain. Yet the same allowance is not made for non-human animals. Indeed, many people are unwilling to accept that animals feel pain although they would never doubt the pains of a person.

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They claim that the said inability of animals to directly communicate with humans accounts for their disbelief. Of course, the direct linguistic connection is absent, and that missing link does create a barrier between humans and other animals that is not present among humans. Just contemplate the difficulty in attempting to pinpoint if a human is in pain if he/she cannot tell you that he/she is. Then increase the communication barrier by tenfold and truly struggle to understand the pain of the individual who cannot expressly tell you of his/her pain.

Now recognize that these severed lines of communication are the norm between non-human animals and humans. Non-human animals have the dual task of communicating to humans the intricacies of their personal pain and moreover, that they are, in fact, in pain. “Pain is a complex physiological phenomenon; it is hard to define satisfactorily in humans, and it is extremely difficult to recognize and interpret in animals”(Carstens, v).

Pain is in and of itself such an unclear concept that if we do not deny its presence its humans, there is no reason to deny its presence in other species-even if other animals’ lack the recognizable language to tell people that they are hurting. Non-human animals can feel pain and there are other means than the spoken word through which they can express their pain to humans. Yet though a lack of language to convey their pain in the conventional sense empowers some people to assert that other species do not feel pain, this very argument is used by others to attest to the sentient, or, in this case, pain-sensitive, capabilities of animals. Language may be necessary for abstract thought, at some level anyway; but states like pain are more primitive, and have nothing to do with language.

Even if there were stronger grounds for refusing to attribute pain to those who do not have a language, the consequences of this refusal might lead us to reject the conclusion. Human infants and young children are unable to use language. Are we to deny that a year-old child can suffer? If not, language cannot be crucial (Singer, 14-15). That we acknowledge young human pain, although non-linguistically expressed, is more than enough reason not to immediately dismiss the idea that non-human animals feel pain.

Further, that people acknowledge pain in any imperfectly verbal human is reason enough for humans to at least consider that animals might feel pain. “We cannot say that animal emotional life is a closed book for us or that we have no understanding at all of their sensations of pain. In principle the same factors determine the degree of certainty with regard to animal pain as to the pain of the mentally ill and children” (Rollin, 225). Yet despite the fact that people consider it wrong to inflict pain on a baby even though it cannot say “Ow,” they do not necessarily consider it wrong to inflict the same amount of pain on animals.

They simply do not realize that the former is just as “iffy” as the latter, and for the same reasons: if one is considered real without linguistic testimony from the afflicted, it follows that the reality of the other ought also to be upheld. “If we consider it wrong to inflict that much pain on a baby for no good reason then we must “consider it equally wrong to inflict the same amount of pain on a horse for no good reason” (Singer, 16). But not everyone does consider it wrong to inflict treatment on a non-human animal that one would not inflict on a human baby.

For not everybody has enough personal experience with non-human animals to assert that they derive pain from such treatment. And personal experience with animals is becoming exponentially more limited as technology advances. Unfortunately, nothing, lest of all science, perfectly substitutes for personal experience. “Scientific insight has in the last century reaffirmed and expanded much that farmers (and hunters before them) have known all along. The cave paintings of Lascaux were the work of people who knew the form and movements and habits of the animals upon whom their livelihood depended.

Yet as such personal experience became less and less a part of a larger public’s consciousness, formal knowledge in the form of scientific observation and record maddeningly failed to take its place” (Budiansky, 13). Relying on scientific testing is especially faulty because one does not scientifically test for pain and injury when one sees nothing to scientifically test for, and animals often display fewer symptoms of pain than humans.

In other words, animal pain must first be suspected, a suspicion which requires personal experience with the animal, before the animal can be scientifically assessed for its pain, a pain that is often unrecognizable to people who have no experience with animals because it can be unapparent Many animals are stoical and only display behavioral changes which do not immediately suggest that they are in pain. For instance, a cat who has a fractured limb will tend to hide away rather than howl in agony. A dog badly bruised following a road traffic accident may simply be quieter than usual. Of course overt signs of pain are also seen, but the veterinarian must suspect the presence of pain when the conditions, and personal experience, suggest that the animal could be expected to feel pain.

There is no reason for an animal to tolerate pain simply because it does not complain (Rollin, 194). But even if an animal were prone to expressing its pain, it might be experiencing the kind of pain that does not constantly pain it and as such, its complaints might be limited to the very few circumstances under which it is feeling pain. So if one were not to spend an extended amount of time around the animal, one might not be privy to the few instances that cause the animal enough pain for it to voice its distress.

“Pain may not be noticed until a normal physiological act is induced, such as swallowing, coughing, chewing, defecating, or any bodily movement” (FASS, 20). These are not processes that a brief animal passerby would necessarily witness. But if one were to dedicate enough time to observing and, moreover, to personally relating to animals, one would amass enough time with animals to see a full range of their possible actions. Thus, one would learn how an animal displays its pain. Of course, personal experience with animals and people can be fortified with scientific evidence to identify pain in other species.

For many people, though, it is the aspect of personal experience that is especially effective in non-human animal pain identification, because they can compare other species’ actions that they think indicate pain to people’s actions they know indicate pain. “Scientific knowledge concerning pain perception in animals must be obtained by drawing analogies based on comparative anatomy, physiology, and pathology and by inference based on subjective responses to pain experienced by humans” (Carstens, v). Indeed, people do often base what they think animals are feeling on what they know through personal experience that people are feeling when act in the same/similar way(s).

And as most people have more personal experience with other people than they do with other species, there is hardly a way around using human pain as a point of comparison for animal pain. For it is the only pain that humans can ever know through direct, personal experience of the self; thus, humans can with relative certainty be sure of its presence. As such, the reality of non-human animal pain is constantly pitted against the reality of human pain. And this train of thought is sensible.

For while humans can definitely express to other humans the presence of pain, animals cannot, so animal pain remains unknown where human pain is already demystified; therefore, people cannot but judge by their own pain However, not everyone believes that human comparison is a valid point of reference. Such skeptics accuse those who utilize this comparative methodology of anthropomorphizing animals or, to oversimplify, turning them into humans. The cause for this opposing group’s cries of anthropomorphism when others claim to worry about animal pain is that “in circumstances in which humans would be screaming and writhing, many animals show very few signs of extreme pain” (Rollin, 145).

But those who legitimately fear for unrecognized/overlooked animal pain flip the coin by labeling their opposition as the truly anthropomorphic. “Who else besides someone guilty of the greatest anthropomorphism would expect expressions of animal feelings to be precisely like our own, would expect a cow in pain, for example, to run about beating its breast and bellowing” (Rollin, 146). In other words, the argument against using human comparison is that humans act certain ways when they are in pain, and since animals do not, saying they feel pain is like saying they are humans.

But there is no reason to say that animals do not feel pain simply because they do not exhibit the typical symptoms of humans. After all, even within the human species, pain reactions vary. Not every person responds to pain the same way. “Unquestionably, animal pain responses are not always the same as ours-compare a horse’s wincing rather than crying out when hurt-but, for that matter, human pain responses vary across different cultures and subcultures and among individuals” (Rollin, 150). Animals, like people, do not all respond identically to pain.

But since acknowledgment of variation in human pain response is widely accepted while presupposing that people feel pain, humans must first accept that other species feel pain before they can recognize variation in that pain response. For people, many more allowances are made, including the acceptance that the root of pain response, the pain-tolerance threshold, also widely varies per person. For different people require different levels of pain to produce the same reactions.

“Scientists and laypeople have long recognized that the pain-tolerance threshold-that is, the maximum pain that a subject can endure before the stimulus is perceived as unbearable-varies widely from individual to individual, depending on a number of factors. Indeed, it varies widely even in the same individual, depending on the context of the pain, the person’s mood, anxiety level, and so on” (Rollin, 150). Some people are reluctant to acknowledge this variation in other species, though, and thus unwilling to accept that animal pain response is personalized. After all, even a significant number of people who accept that animals feel pain still question whether or not that pain experience varies.

“Debate continues about whether animals of different species perceive pain similarly” (Carstens, v). Charles Darwin, one of the originators in the school of thought that recognized animal pain, did not expressly discount variation in animal pain, but did promote the idea that all animals have a common, fixed range of reactions to choose from.

“An agony of pain is expressed by dogs in nearly the same way as by all other animals, namely by howling, writhing, and contortions of the whole body,” (Darwin, 121). Moreover, though, assuming the existence of pain variation in non-human animals, skeptics question if such pain would even be detectable to other species, presuming that it would not. “It may be objected that comparisons of the suffering of different species are impossible to make. And it is probably true that comparisons of suffering between members of different species cannot be made precisely,” (Singer, 17) said modern-day social and moral philosopher Peter Singer. To Singer, though, acknowledgment of absolute differentiation in animal pain is only very secondarily important to the accepting that animals are firstly capable of feeling pain. “But,” Singer continues, “precision is not essential.

For if it is justifiable to assume that other humans feel pain as we do, is there any reason why a similar inference should not be justifiable in the case of other animals? Nearly all the external signs which lead us to infer pain in other humans can be seen in other species. In addition, we know that these animals have nervous systems very like ours, which respond physiologically as ours do when the animal is in circumstances in which we would feel pain: an initial rise of blood pressure, dilated pupils, perspiration, an increased pulse rate, and, if the stimulus continues, a fall in blood pressure” (Singer, 17).

As some species have nervous systems so like that of humans, the denial of non-human animal pain en masse is to bluntly deny human pain. But skeptics of non-human animal pain never discount the reality of human pain; they “only” discredit the reality of pain in other species, disregarding the fact that they are not so dissimilar to those other animals. However, some people have always contested human likeness to other animals, especially when it comes to the capacity for feeling pain.

One antiquated, yet not quite defunct, reason for speculating that other species cannot feel pain as humans do, was popularized by philosopher and mathematician Rene Descartes. In 1637, Descartes deemed animals not to have minds or souls but merely to be mechanized beings that are incapable of feeling pain.

“One can well conceive that a machine may be so made as to emit words, and even that it may emit some in relation to bodily actions which cause a change in its organs, as, for example, if one were to touch it in a particular place, it may ask what one wishes to say to it; if it is touched in another place, it may cry out that it is being hurt, and so on; but not that it may arrange words in various ways to reply to the sense of everything that is said in its presence, in the way that the most unintelligent of men can do” (Descartes, 74). Descartes declared that animals are machines reacting automatically, sans feeling. A contemporary of Descartes observed men who, “Administered beatings to dogs with perfect indifference, and made fun of those that pitied the creatures as if they felt pain.

They said the animals were clocks; that the cries they emitted when struck were only the noise of a little spring that has been touched, but that the whole body was without feeling” (Serpell, 155But while Descartes’ theory that animals are mere machines allowed him and his contemporaries to injure animals without considering that they might be in pain, his theory has today served to disprove itself. “In a dialectical irony” Cartesianism has been its own undoing, by demonstrating more and more identical neurophysiological mechanisms in humans and animals, mechanisms which make it highly implausible that animals are merely machines if we are not” (Rollin, 153). Indeed, some species have been proven much too like humans not to feel pain.

Even fish, which were once thought of even by animal activists as too unlike humans to feel pain in any way that people do, are now considered to have nervous systems too developed not to feel pain. “While researchers are not sure which animals feel pain there is much evidence that animals who many people thought could not feel pain, in fact, do. Fish show responses to painful stimuli that resemble those of other animals, including humans” (Bekoff, 143). Very recently, a British study published in the New York Times concluded that fish feel pain despite a long-term thinking that they do not.

Sneddon and other scientists at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh discovered that the fish displayed “profound behavioral and physiological changes” over a period of time, “comparable to those observed in higher mammals” (Cowell). The fish also seemed to experience “aftershocks” of pain other than the pain derived directly from the initial injections. “After the injections, Dr. Sneddon said, “fish demonstrated `rocking’ motion strikingly similar to the kind of motion seen in stressed higher vertebrates like mammals, and the trout injected with acetic acid were also observed to rub their lips onto the gravel in the tank and onto the tank walls.” (Cowell). All of these tests led to the conclusion that fish pain is reality.

“This indicates, the researchers believe, that fish can perceive pain,” the Royal Society said in a statement” (Cowell). It has even be determined that animals more dissimilar to humans than fish possess aspects of the nervous system that, in people, react to painful stimuli. “Even some invertebrates possess nerve cells that are associated with the feeling of pain in vertebrates” (Bekoff, 143). Moreover, these “lesser” animals actually have some of the same abilities as humans to rectify their pain.

“Endorphins [hormones found mainly in the brain that reduce the sensation of pain] have been found even in earthworms,” (Rollin, 154). In short, animals are conclusively more complex than simple machines, and, in some cases, are even capable of some of the same physiological capacity for pain sensation that people are. The case for animal pain is not only likely, but nearly indisputable without choosing to ignore fact. Too much subjective and objective, quantitative as well as qualitative, evidence supports the legitimacy of animal pain for a logical dispute to exist. Yet one does.

One potential reason for the persistence of the seemingly outdated, null and void argument against animal pain is that people are hard-pressed to witness animal pain when they have limited animal contact, which most people do. But denial of non-human animal pain is also incompatible with non-experiential proof that attests to the reality of pain in other animals. “It is surely unreasonable to suppose that nervous systems which are virtually identical physiologically, have a common origin and a common evolutionary function, and result in similar forms of behavior in similar circumstances should actually operate in an entirely different manner on the level of subjective feelings” (Singer, 12).

Another implausible means by which to disclaim animal pain is to surmise that because they fail to formally communicate to humans their pain, they do not actually feel pain. This argument is flawed because such inability to voice distress is also exhibited in some humans. Though people rarely doubt that babies and mentally handicapped humans feel pain, and they are sometimes less comprehensible than animals, babies, the mentally handicapped and non-human animals are equally incapable of formally expressing their pain.

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The sub par performance of the U.S. economy extended into the first half of 2003. Although accommodative macroeconomic policies and continued robust productivity growth helped to sustain aggregate demand, businesses remained cautious about spending and hiring. All told, real gross domestic product continued to rise in the first half of the year but less quickly than the economy’s productive capacity was increasing, and margins of slack in labor and product markets thereby widened further. As a result, underlying inflation remained low.
(Fed Reserve Board, 2003)

In financial markets, longer-term interest rates fell, on net, over the first half of the year as the decline in inflation and the subdued performance of the economy led market participants to conclude that short-term interest rates would be lower than previously anticipated. These lower interest rates helped to sustain a rally in equity prices that had begun in mid-March. The Federal Reserve expects economic activity to strengthen later this year and in 2004, in part because of the accommodative stance of monetary policy and the broad-based improvement in financial conditions.

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In addition, fiscal policy is likely to be stimulative as the provisions of the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 go into effect and as defense spending continues to ramp up. Severe budgetary pressures are causing state and local governments to cut spending and to increase taxes and fees, but these actions should offset only a portion of the impetus from the federal sector. Moreover, the continued favorable performance of productivity growth should lift household and business incomes and thereby encourage capital spending. Given the ongoing gains in productivity and the existing margin of resource slack, aggregate demand could grow at a solid pace for some time before generating upward pressure on inflation.

At the heart of the current debate over just how the Fed should communicate the goals, strategy and conduct of monetary policy lies the issue of what central bankers call “transparency”: How much should the Fed say and to what end? However, in the interim, the debate has grown still more heated and confusing.

In my view, transparency is important not just to be accountable; it is essential for monetary policy to succeed. That’s because transparency about goals anchors inflation expectations, and understanding how the Fed operates makes financial market participants the Fed’s ally rather than its adversary. In short, transparency builds credibility. Thus, Fed officials should clearly state their goals, their resolve to achieve them and whether or not policy is in equilibrium. To be sure, transparency has its limits: To quote Fed Governor Edward Gramlich, “policymakers, of course, need to discuss various policy options in confidence. Doing otherwise will not get the most competent policymakers to the table, and it will not promote frank and open discussions.” (Fed Reserve Board, 2003) But that’s where the limits should end.

Give the Fed credit: Over the past two decades, Fed officials have dramatically improved their public communication of the goals of monetary policy. And they have articulated in far more detail than before how policy should be formulated and conducted. In my view, clarity about both policy goals and framework and transparency about conduct has vastly improved the efficiency of policy. In an extremely important respect, the results have been wildly successful: Inflation and inflation expectations have been low and stable for a few years now, as the Fed’s commitment to price stability and getting market participants to share that goal have made it a reality.

For market participants, the process has been transforming. Only a decade ago, Fed watchers decoded signals from the Open Market Desk, and sometimes misread them. Today, the Fed is more inclined to let Fed watchers in on the conversation. Officials regularly and freely communicate their views about the economy and policy, so all market participants can weigh the risks surrounding policy choices on an ongoing basis. Announcing policy changes, the rationale for them, and how Members voted immediately following each meeting has helped all market participants understand policy intent. (Fed Reserve Board, 2003)

How should the Fed change its communiques to improve transparency? In my view, the Fed should spell out its goals so that we all know what range of inflation (or price level over time) constitutes price stability. Likewise, committing to an inflation goal will help eliminate confusion about how the Fed will react to unacceptably low inflation. And finally, stating a policy bias one way or another will reinforce understanding of where the Fed is going. Following these three precepts in my view will improve the Fed’s chance of success.

I’m not alone in that judgment. Inflation-targeting central banks such as the Bank of Canada (BoC) argue that “One of the most important benefits of a clear inflation target is its role in focusing expectations of future inflation…. it has helped to make the Bank’s monetary policy actions more readily understandable to financial markets and the public.” (BoC, 2003) But the Fed need not target inflation explicitly to reap the benefits of transparency about goals. For example, Fed Governor Ben Bernanke has merely specified what he thinks is an acceptable range for inflation (1% to 2% measured by the core chain-type price index for personal consumption) in order to clarify why the Fed today won’t respond to above-trend growth as in the past. (Fed Reserve Board, 2003)

Policymakers generally agree that monetary policy operates by shaping expectations – in financial markets and in the economy at large. Clarity about goals is the most critical ingredient in that process. But more straightforward disclosure would also help anchor expectations and get markets to help the Fed.

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I would like to start by saying that the US economy just like the economy of any other country in the world follows certain patterns and is defined and represented by certain indicators and figures. In the following essay, one will explore the US economy from 1999 till 2005, evaluate it, and understand the behavior of investors involved in the market.

In order to better understand the dynamics that take place in the US market I have selected some date from United States of America regarding the following elements as shown in the essay below:

• Movements in a major market stock index
• Interest rates offered on Government bonds
• Fluctuations in exchange rates between the domestic currency and the Euro and either Sterling or the US Dollar.

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The data for each of the selected indicators ranges from January 1999 till January 2005. We will use that time period for better understanding of the situation.

As one can see the major indicators of the US financial/economic health had followed a somewhat similar downward and upward sloping pattern.

Let’s start with the interest rates movement as set by the 2 year Treasure note to track one of the most important figures in the US economy. The other figures will be shown in that retrospective to assess the impact of interest rates on other figures like exchange rates and stock market (NASDAQ 100) For better understanding of the concepts, we can split the whole curve into several sections as defined by the turning points.

a. January 1999 till July 2000. The US interest rates are seen as growing as a result of Fed’s attempt to cool down the US economy (contraction monetary policy) and prevent it from overheating that apparently was about to take place that that period of time. The interest rates grew from about 4.5% till 6.75% over the selected period.

As one could see from NASDAQ 100 figures the stock market of hi-tech companies over the same period (Jan 1999 till Apr 2000) had grown dramatically despite the growing interest rates in the country. Although NASDAQ is not as accurate indicator of economy as S&P 500 it does show the general economic trends that take in the USA and defined by hi-tech companies. So far, one can see that as the index grew from slightly below 2000 in year 1999 till about 4400 in 2000, the US economy expanded despite the growing interest rates (Vinning, 98).

Speaking about the exchange rates I would like to note that they are formed primarily by the interest rate parity which in simpler terms states that the country which has interest rates higher is likely to witness its currently slip against the country which has lower interest rates for the same time period. This is exactly what one could have observed on the graph depicting the exchange rates between Euro and the US dollar. As one could see the Euro had originally been more expensive than the US dollar (equaling 1.2$ per Euro in Jan 1999), yet in July 2000 Euro cost some $093 cents. According to the no-arbitrage theory such fall in Euro price could have been created by the interest rates in Europe growing at a rate higher than that in the USA for the same time period. As matter of fact European interest rates had been historically higher than the Interest rates in the USA. Strengthening US dollar could have been the cause of market misinterpretation of the interest rates/stock market movement. In 1999, the US market had reached its new high, while the growing interest rates were interpreted as the Fed’s desire to halt the market growth to prevent overheating of the economy. As a result of a strong US economy, one usually predicts strong demand for the US currency and thus strong US dollar. Should the Fed start lowering the interest rates and the NASDAQ plummet, one would interpret that as already declining economy and would observe lowering price of dollars. In 1999, Euro had been a new currency that was supposed to cover 12 original European countries members of the monetary union. The war crisis in Kosovo/The Balkans during that period of time and mistrust towards the new currency in Europe could have also contributed to the widening gap between US dollar and Euro.

The exchange rate between the US dollar and Great Britain pound had also experienced a slight change graphically similar to that of Euro/US exchange rate graph yet with very little fluctuation. Small fluctuation could have been explained by the similar interest rates between the USA and Great Britain, and high correlation between British and American economies, which is not the case with the US, and European economy (Euro zone).

b. July 2000 till Nov 2001. This period showed a tremendous fall in interest rates as the interest rate for 2-year t-note fell from 6.75% till about 2.75%. Such rapid lowering of interest rates in a country like the USA might mean only one thing: The US economy is suffocating and it needs a powerful boost and jumpstart to return to the right place. Here we do not have additional indices yet one can assume that the inventory levels, and unemployment grew, while production fell (Strong, 148).

The US economy as represented in our case by NASDAQ 100 plummeted from 4500 in July 2000 till about 1200 in November 2001. it seemed that the Market could not cover some psychologically critical points like that of 2500 or 1500 at first yet then freely fell below these levels. Apparently this showed investors that the US economy went sour.

The exchange rates on the other hand showed US dollar appreciation as the export-driven European and British economies had probably attempted to depress their own currencies to make their goods more competitive in the declining US economy. As a result, the US dollar slightly appreciated against the major European currencies as represented by the EURO and GBP. The lowered interest rates according to the arbitrage pricing theory (interest rate parity) meant that the US dollar was supposed to appreciate.

c. Nov 2001 till Jun 2003. this period of time showed a slight decline and stabilization of the US interest rates for 2 year T notes. The interest rates despite some increases ultimately fell from 2.75% till 1.25% to reach the absolute minimum interest rate for the period. As one could understand from Japan’s experience it was a critical period since as the interest rates approach the zero, the Fed loses one of its monetary tools to control the economy, since one cannot set the interest rates below 0%.
During the same time period, the stock market NASDAQ 100 had also hit its minimum and probably its book value and just like the interest rates followed an up-and-down sloping pattern during the period (Stulz, 63)

The exchange rates for both Euro and British Pound on the other hand showed that the US dollar depreciated against these two major currencies. It is rather possible that as the global currency traders noted that the US economy was falling deep together with the interest rates and that the Fed was about to stop controlling the economy by playing with the interest rates (since they were almost non-existent) the trust in dollar fell and the currency depreciated as illustrated on the graphs.

d. Jun 2003 till Feb 2005. This was the final period selected for this report and it showed relative economic recovery of the USA. The interest rate for 2 year T-bill quickly grew from 1.25% till 3.25%, which was interpreted by the major markets as revitalization of the US economy. It was understood that the Feb raised the rates rapidly to establish another safety margin to later play with the interest rates should the economy require that.

NASDAQ 100 grew insignificantly from about 1250 till slightly over 1500 and never seemed to reach the 4000-point figures it enjoyed a few years ago.

The exchange rates between the US dollar and Euro or Great British Pound showed that the US dollar was losing ground and depreciated against Euro and Pound. One of the reasons why that happened is because the USA let loose the dollar to contribute to the competitiveness of the US goods abroad that supposedly would help revitalize the US economy. Furthermore, the strong control over Pound and Euro by the corresponding governments together with these countries’ interest rates remaining unchanged against the rapid increase in interest rates in the USA meant that the dollar depreciated (Stephens, 230).

Speaking about the risks present in the given situation, I would like to note that it was the market risk driven by misrepresentation. It is apparent that the interest rates, exchange rates or the whole economy follows a certain pattern (going up and down), yet it is uncertain how large these swings will be and how much time will pass between corresponding swings. Thus, one observed that the stock market could not pass some even number like 2500 or 1500 yet ultimately driven by fundamental causes did pass them. Investors have the major risk here of being unhedged and not going the way market goes. In this case, being unhedged is the main risk that needs to be noted.

2. Identify and explain a derivative contract, written on an underlying asset from I chosed US market, which could be used to manage the type of risk identified in your answer to part two. Explain how such a risk management strategy. would work. (50%)

Derivatives are the securities created with a direct relationship to some other fundamental securities of debt and equity, let alone commodities.

These securities fall into various categories like futures, forwards, options, caps and swaps, yet in this research paper we will focus primarily on future and options.

1. Futures. These securities are contracts to buy something at some future time. Typically futures are used to hedge the risks associated with the price changes of the underlying commodity or security. Thus, a futures contract to buy 100 barrels of oil in March, 2005 at say, $45/barrel means that the futures holder is obliged to buy 100 barrels of oil at that specified price and the oil seller must sell oil at the specified date in specified quantities at specified price. Futures contracts are obligatory, so once you are in, unless you reverse the position, you have to fulfill the obligation.

2. Options. These securities are similar to futures in terms of specifying the future product/security, time, and price. Yet, they are optional, so they may not necessarily be exercised. Call options are the options to buy something at a specified, price, time and date1. The holder of call options may choose whether or not to exercise them. Put options are the options to sell something at a specified price, time and date. Once again, put options may not be exercised if the price of the underlying security does not suffice the put holder (Siciliano, 89).

Hedging: Hedging refers to risk minimization attempts made by the company to assure reduced volatility and predictable future. Derivatives of different kinds are used to help the companies to achieve that goal.

1. Futures. Since futures are mandatory contracts to buy or sell something, they can be used to minimize risks. For instance, lets assume that a farmer wants to sell wheat on the market in the fall, yet is very much uncertain about the price for wheat at that time period. He could speculate, keep his fingers crossed and do nothing hoping that the price would be just what he expects (Fields, 139). Or he could sell wheat futures that would stipulate the price, quantity and means of delivery of wheat on the market. Once the futures are sold, the farmer should stop worrying about the price changes for wheat, but should rather do everything possible to grow the wheat. Even if the price of wheat falls, the farmer is hedged, since the future contract specified the price at which the farmer will sell the wheat in the future. If the price grows more than expected, he could reverse his position (buy futures for wheat) and then sell the wheat on the market. Futures thus can be applied to different securities, not just commodities that were illustrated above.

2. Options. Options work in a way similar to futures except for they provide more flexibility. For instance, if one holds Microsoft stock, yet believes that the price will fall, he could buy Put options (options to sell) covering Microsoft stock. Indeed once, the Microsoft stock falls (below the exercise price of options, thus making them attractive/in the money), the stockholder would exercise the put option and offset the losses in stock with gains in puts. As a matter of fact there are many mechanisms associated with hedging using puts and calls.

Speculating: This is when a person takes risks with hopes to generate extra profit in the future. The farmer, noted above, should he not hedge-he immediately speculates. Speculation involves a belief that the underlying security will move in a certain direction and the speculator does everything possible to augment the possible return. Thus, if a farmer, believes that the price of wheat will be high in the fall, he, besides growing his own wheat to sell in the fall, would also buy wheat futures, which would allow him to maximize the returns in the fall if his predictions are correct. If his predictions are false, he will incur great losses.

Options can also help in speculating. Thus, if one believes that the price of a security will increase, he would buy call options, or sell puts on them. If the price is expected to fall, he would sell calls or buy puts on the security.

The simplest way to manage risk associated with the change of price of a currency that needs to be bought at some future time is to buy futures on the given security. Thus, once the futures contract is bought one locks in the price of a currency (or a security, T note etc) and thus avoids any risks from fluctuations. If a currency (security) needs to be sold at some future time, one needs to sell futures contracts on the proper security (currency) to lock in the prices.

The agreed price at which the exchange of currencies in an option may occur is called the exercise or strike price. The date on which the option expires is called the expiry date.

The buyer of the option pays a premium. Upon payment of the premium the option buyer has no further obligation in the contract, but has the right to exchange currencies at the agreed Strike Price.

Usually if you are an importer to Europe or Great Britain, you’d need to sell EUR and GBP and buy USD, thus one would buy Put EUR/Put GBP or sell Call USD. If you are a British or Euro zone exporter you’d need to sell the USD and buy GBP or EUR, thus one needs to buy Call GBP or Call EUR or sell Put USD (Valentine, 252).

Upon the expiry date of the option if the strike price is OTM (out of money), i.e. it is cheaper to buy the security on the market, the option would expire worthless or lapse.

If the option is ‘In the Money’ (ITM) it is likely you will exercise your right to exchange currencies under the option.

Unlike a Forward Exchange Contract, where each party is always obliged to execute, an option contract enables you to take advantage of favorable exchange rate movements, by enabling you to buy/sell the currency at the prevailing rate of exchange rather than the strike price of the option.

To manage the risks associated with the price changes, one can do either of the following:

a. If a price of a given security (currency) is expected to fall, one can buy puts on the appropriate security. In the even the price of a security falls, one will exercise the bought put option and sell the currency/security at a price specified in the contract.

b. If a price of a given security is expected to increase and you need that security at some future time, then one can buy a call option (option to buy) on a security that will likely increase in price. Should it increase, one would exercise the contact and get it for a decent price (expected as defined by the contract).

In other instances, the options will expire worthless and one would enjoy positive changes that took place without a hedge. Please note that one can use rather sophisticated schemes to hedge securities and currencies using various options and futures separately and in a combined manner.
In conclusion, I would like to note that the US economy from a period of 1999 till 2005 had witnessed a tremendous growth, a rapid decline, and then gradual improvement. The interest rates, and the market showed almost perfect interaction in terms of the influence of one on the other. The changes of the exchange rates of the US dollar with respect to Euro and British Pound on the other hand were not clearly understood with the amount of information available on hand yet still followed general fundamental rules. The primary risk that a person faces in the situation illustrated in the essay when the economy is unpredictable just like the interest rates and the exchange rates, is being unhedged. The essay spoke of certain derivative securities like futures and options contracts and showed certain differences and similarities. One learnt that options and futures could be effectively used in hedging and speculating depending on the objectives and the position held with these securities. By being unhedged one automatically speculates and thus assumes market risk. In order to reduce the risk one can hedge with the help of derivative contracts regardless of be they futures, forwards, options, swaps, caps or any other.

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Social theory has recently been engaged in a wide-ranging discussion concerning the relationships between “sexuality” and “gender“. One of the most influential texts in this debate is Judith Butler Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, a book that also circulates within Foucauldian, psychoanalytic, and deconstructionist debates concerning the constitution of the subject and the category of identity.

Butler’s investment in the Foucauldian paradigm has more to do with the relation of discourse to the construction of subjectivity (she argues that there is no subject “before” discourse or outside the law) than with epistemic shifts or the emergence of new subjectivities within discursive formations. In other words, Butler is interested in the philosophical and linguistic significance of Foucault’s claims concerning the circulation of juridical power and the idea of the subject as enabled into being by that power. She does not seem to be as interested in the “historical Foucault.” (Butler, 1990)

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Thomas Laqueur evinces precisely the opposite tendency in his book Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud, as he traces historical shifts in perception of “sex” from a one-sex model of the body (an ancient and early modern view) to a two-sex model (a post-Enlightenment conception), arguing that political exigencies motivated this change in scientific perception (rather than any specific scientific discovery concerning the anatomy or physiology of sex). (Laqueur, 1990)

For Laqueur, “sex” (anatomical or physiological sexual difference) is always an effect of a society’s gender arrangements. Gender, as the social structure designating the proper place of subjects along an axis of differentiation, determines perceptions of the body as sexed — determines, indeed, what counts as “sex.” (Laqueur, 1990)

While Laqueur makes this argument through an analysis of the history of the one-sex model of the body and its transformation into a two-sex model over the course of centuries, Butler makes a similar argument in a deconstructive mode: “sex,” she argues, cannot be thought of as prior to gender if gender is the law that is necessary in order to think “sex” at all. In this analysis, “sex as nature” is only the naturalized a priori that gender projects as its requisite antecedent.

In order to make sense of the changes in discourse — that is, changes in the relationships between “sexuality” and “gender” as terms – we could utilize yet another model or mode of analysis: semiotics, or specifically, Roland Barthes’s semiotic model of mythology. (Barthes, 1993)

Barthes work in cultural semiotics, as exemplified by The Fashion System, makes possible a method of reading the body as a sign system whose signifiers are both part of a “real code” beyond the discursive capacity of language to appropriate and part of a terminological or descriptive system produced by science to bring the body into language and therefore into epistemology and ideology. Ways of seeing the body, ways of encoding anatomy and physiology into the language of medicine, have a significant impact on imagined and imaginable forms of subjectivity.

Barthes’s semiotics of mythology thus allow the researchers to “work the join” between Laqueur’s and Butler’s two appropriations of Foucault, to make theoretical claims via a historical analysis and to use history to understand the problematical discursive relationship between sex and gender. (Barthes, 1993) It is important to remember, however, that a model is a heuristic device, which facilitates a certain understanding, highlighting certain features while diminishing the significance of others; it is the selective rewriting of a situation whose complexity entails the possibility of other, alternative models, models which highlight different features, presenting different emphases.

In chapter I of Gender Trouble, Butler examines the naturalized relation between gender, sex, and desire that produces the idea of identity in the human subject. Her argument concerning the unnaturalness of gender and its presumptive regulation of sex is made through a very precise analysis of the linguistic and philosophical logic that maintains sex as the origin of gender by obscuring how gender serves to produce sex as “the natural” condition of its existence as an identity.

Butler uses philosophical and political discourses as the stage of her analysis, relying heavily on readings of Michel Foucault, Monique Wittig, Simone de Beauvoir, Luce Irigaray, and Jacques Lacan to substantiate her claims. Butler purpose in writing Gender Trouble is to unsettle the premises of both feminist politics and theory insofar as each relies on the idea of an identity that precedes the subject of feminism. That is, Butler’s argument against “gender” is one whose real target is the politics of identity that have supported feminist theorizing and political action in recent years. (Butler, 1990)

The first line of the preface to Gender Trouble claims that “contemporary feminist debates over the meanings of gender lead time and again to a certain sense of trouble, as if the indeterminacy of gender might eventually culminate in the failure of feminism.” (Butler, 1990) While feminist theorists such as Teresa de Lauretis attempt to alleviate that trouble through further specifications of the category “gender,” Butler proceeds in the opposite direction, attempting to unsettle its signifying power and thus reorient its position as a signifier in feminist theory and action.

She demonstrates that rather than being the expression of sex, or the cultural production of sex, the idea of gender in fact regulates the notion that sex is the natural condition of the human body. Butler makes this claim as part of a broader demonstration of Foucault’s work on “juridical systems of power that produce the subjects they subsequently come to represent.” (Butler, 1990) She analyzes the relation of sex and gender in order to show that what is thought to be the primary condition (sex) is actually an idea mediated by what poses as its secondary effect (gender).

Butler takes her analysis further by arguing that the (fictive) category of gender identity is actually constituted by the performative acts that it is thought to produce as its “expression.” She establishes that gender identity is not a “descriptive feature of experience” but a normative ideal. (Butler, 1990) As such, it operates in a regulatory fashion, producing subjects who fit its requirements for “harmony” between gender and sexuality and punishing those for whom the categories are in disarray.

Indeed, she argues “the very notion of ‘the person’ is called into question by the cultural emergence of those ‘incoherent’ or ‘discontinuous’ gendered beings who appear to be persons but who fail to conform to the gendered norms of cultural intelligibility by which persons are defined.” (Butler, 1990) Gender becomes intelligible through the “heterosexual matrix,” which she defines as “that grid of cultural intelligibility through which bodies, genders, and desires are naturalized.” (Butler, 1990)

It is characterized by “a hegemonic discursive/epistemic model of gender intelligibility that assumes that for bodies to cohere and make sense there must be a stable sex expressed through a stable gender…that is oppositionally and hierarchically defined through the compulsory practice of heterosexuality.” (Butler, 1990)

Ultimately, Butler argues for the “redeployment” of gender performances — those behaviors and activities that produce gender in everyday life and constitute as men and women the subjects who engage them — through subversive, parodic repetitions. These parodic acts would unsettle received notions concerning the naturalness of gender as the core of identity by highlighting the artificial relation of gender to bodies and sexualities. Butler suggests that drag performances are one example of this parodic replaying of gender in order to subvert its meanings in contemporary culture.

She implies that these acts reveal “the performative status of the natural” and argues that the “task is not whether to repeat, but how to repeat or, indeed, to repeat and, through a radical proliferation of gender, to displace the very gender norms that enable the repetition itself.” (Butler, 1990) Once identities are no longer considered the basis for political action, but are understood to be performatively constituted through such action, and once those actions are engaged in the process of deconstruction Butler designates “subversive repetition,” “cultural configurations of sex and gender might then proliferate or, rather, their present proliferation might then become articulable within the discourses that establish intelligible cultural life, confounding the very binarism of sex, and exposing its fundamental unnaturalness.” (Butler, 1990)

The “proliferations” Butler envisions inaugurate the subversion of these terms, which represent the two discursive categories available. Butler would argue that we cannot wish ourselves outside of the existing ideological field in which sexuality and gender are understood as separate but linked phenomena. The presentation of these two terms — “sexuality” and “gender” — as the inevitable categories in play, however, is possible only because Butler disregards the historical production of the idea of gender as identity.

Her lack of historical analysis results in the presentation of these two terms as inevitable; subversion must engage them because they are (always already) what is (and has been) available. If, however, it is acknowledged that “gender” was produced at a specific historical moment in response to particular circumstances, and that its introduction into medical and popular discourses had measurable effects in the conceptualization of sexed subjectivity, then it would be possible to investigate what were perceived as the articulations of sex prior to the introduction of “gender” and to examine the possibility of returning to and “redeploying” sex — not as the natural body, but as a conceptual apparatus designating the body and representing it in medical and other discourses.

Since sex is mediated by gender — that is, gender is the foundational category that regulates sex as sexual difference in a binary opposition — to redeploy gender and proliferate its meanings would be to reconfigure the possibilities of sex. What other researchers are arguing is that while cultural perceptions regulate the articulation of “sex” historically, influencing and producing particular representations of sex as the natural, original condition of the body in sexual difference, the specific conditions of “gender” have not — until the latter half of the twentieth century. (Money, 1992)

It is possible to rethink sex as a category of representation that refers to both body and culture, and in so doing, to expose the contemporary notion of “gender” as a specific kind of regulation of the category sex. In this sense, the researchers are privileging a deconstructive, semiotic critique of the discourses of science, in order to reposition scientific representations of sex as their ideological regulation shifts historically. (Grosz, 1994)

To disrupt the currently problematic theoretical relation between sexuality and gender, it is not enough to specify, problematize, or proliferate definitions and deployments of gender. It would be more profitable, because more unsettling, to attack the category “sexuality,” to investigate how it operated as a concept before the current articulations of “gender,” and to reconceive the scientific discourses that mandate its unitary “nature.”

This critical “attack on sexuality” would be possible because the discourses of science include counterdiscursive tendencies, positions that are conceived of and then lost, or overwhelmed by the mandates of ideological thinking. There are alternative scenarios of “sexuality” available in scientific literature that we can “redeploy” in the service of deconstructing it as a category of analysis; that is, in the service of its proliferation as representation.

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