The Effects Of Eating Disorders Among Adolescents

Childhood experiences are very influential in molding the perspectives regarding body image among individuals. Emotional invalidation coming from ones parents has been shown to be positively correlated with an increased rate of eating disorders among male and female adolescents. Research conducted by Shisslak et al. (1995) showed that among a sample of university students 91% of the women reported attempting to control their weight through a variety of dieting strategies. There are many factors that have been suggested as being responsible for this negative perception of body image, but a major one often researched stems from the relationships within ones own family. Often time’s society is blamed for the development of eating disorders†¦show more content†¦2007). Largely, emotional invalidation can be understood as a process by which an individual suffers emotional and physical manipulation and neglect to the point where they perceive their thoughts and actions to be of little to no importance (Allen et al. 2013). A research paper conducted by Walker et al. in 2007 illustrated two perceptions commonly found among individuals who had experienced severe emotional abuse; 1) being that there is very little acceptability in expressing ones own emotions, and doing so will lead to negative consequences and 2) enlisting a strong negative view in regards to one’s sense of self. Many studies describe eating disorders as a means of coping with these invalidating feelings resulting from emotional abuse (Hughes-Scalise Connell, 2014). Three Eating Disorders that will be discussed throughout the rest of this review will include, Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa and Binge Eating Disorder. The DSM_IV_TR describes the conditions under which these three eating disorders are characterized. Anorexia Nervosa is a very serious illness with severe implications in regards to health. It is classified by the DSM-IV-TR as weighing less than the third percentile for body mass index for ones age and sex, fearing weight gain, having a disturbed perception of body image and on hormonal contraception or the absence of menstruation (American Psychiatric Association, 2000). Bulimia Nervosa is a second eating disorder described by the

Assassination of John F. Kennedy Truth or Conspiracy

The twenty-four-year-old man eagerly stared down at the street below through the scope mounted on his Italian-made, bolt action, 6.5 caliber rifle until his target appeared. John F. Kennedy was in Dallas, Texas, to campaign ahead of the 1964 election. Lee Harvey Oswald, â€Å"a twenty-four-year-old drifter,† was the shooter that ended John F. Kennedy’s life on November 22, 1963. He acted alone to end the life of the United States President that many Americans believed had the potential to be great. At the age of only 46, the life of this energetic President had been abruptly ended by the act of a lone sniper. Despite the fact that this highly esteemed President died so brutally and unexpectedly, his legacy and call for change has not been†¦show more content†¦Kennedy heard the noise followed by a â€Å"cry from Governor Connally, which caused her to look to her right.† As she turned to her right, she saw a pained look on her husband’s face as he raised his hands to his throat. The second shot had entered President Kennedy’s back and passed through his throat before exiting. The bullet did not strike any bones as it passed through Kennedy’s body. After exiting the President’s neck the bullet entered Governor Connally’s back and exited the front of his chest. The bullet continued through the Governor’s right wrist and entered his left thigh before stopping. An autopsy of the President’s body later â€Å"disclosed that, after entering the President, the bullet passed through two large muscles, . . . bruised the top portion of the right lung and ripped the windpipe† before exiting. Though a serious injury that was caused by the actions of the lone gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald, this shot was not the fatal shot that ended the life of President John F. Kennedy. At this time the third shot struck the President. Governor Connally, who had lain down in his wife’s lap after getting hit in the back, heard the bullet as it â€Å"crashed through the back of Kennedy’s skull.† The three examining pathologists who performed the autopsy of President Kennedy concluded that, â€Å"the smaller hole in the rear of the President’s skull was the point of entry and that the large opening on the right side of his head was the wound of exit.† The third and finalShow MoreRelatedThe Assassination of John F. Kennedy1076 Words   |  4 Pages The assassination of John F. Kennedy is one of the most controversial and debated topics in American History. JFK was one of the most beloved presidents of our time. It was November 22, 1963 when JFK was assassinated. Unlike previous presidential assassinations, the JFK assassination is the most conspiracies of all time. The theories are the Government cover up, Mafia influence and Cuban President Fidel Castro. Imagine one person can do all this planning which Lee Harvey Oswald. 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On November 22, 1963 President John Fittzgerald Kennedy was assassinated in the Dealey Plaza of Dallas Texas. Less than two hours later CBS News showed Harvey Lee Oswald in handcuffs at Dallas Police Headquarters. Harvey Lee Oswald was born October 18, 1939 in New Orleans, LouisianaRead MoreJohn F. Kennedy s Assassination1739 Words   |  7 Pages John F Kennedy grew up in a wealthy and very political family. His assassination was a shock to many. It was a time of Cold War and the peak of US involvement in Vietnam. It is important to understand the John F. Kennedy regime including both its national and foreign policy. You also need to look into his personal life. This would help to create motives, and find the primary aspect to consider when looking into any homicide, assassination or murder. He was the first president who was a Boy ScoutRead MoreA Look into the Assassination of JFK981 Words   |  4 PagesJohn Fitzgerald Kennedy was born on May 29th, 1917 in Brooklyn, Massachusetts. He was named after his grandfather, John Francis Fitzgerald, who happened to also have a career in politics as the mayor of Boston, Massachusetts. He had 8 siblings, three brothers and five sisters. His parents were Patrick Joseph Kennedy and Rose Kennedy. His early life in Massachusetts helped shape him into one of the greatest presidents America has ever had. Kennedy was an especially bright young man with many talentsRead MoreConspiracy Theories Surrounding The Assessination of John F. Kennedy1743 Words   |  7 PagesConspiracy theories surround the average human in the world of education. Whether the average person chooses to ignore them or to accept them is one thing, but before any one person should put their faith in any one conspiracy theory, you must first study all the facts of that specific theory. There are hundreds of conspiracy theories that have been nagging at humanity for years; however, there are three main conspiracies that stick out more than others. The first being the JFK conspiracy theoryRead MoreBook 1984 Analysis: Conspiracies in the US, John F. Kennedy1438 Words   |  6 Pages A conspiracy is a â€Å"secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful† (Conspiracy.). One of the most conspiracy filled events in history just happens to be the John F. Kennedy assassination. Some ideas are way out there, but others sound like they might have at least a hint of truth in them. The book 1984, relates to a few of these schemes of how and such an event would happen, but even more importantly how it was covered up. In the book they were masterminds at covering up events and

Supply Chain Management free essay sample

I don’t feel that the fixed price contract agreed upon by Florida Retailing Company was the best way to procure ACME’s computer system. The reason for this is because with the agreement, 50% was being paid up front, where that could still probably be acceptable in a revised agreement, however, the other 50 % was being pad upon delivery. ACME received full payment without any guarantee that the computer system would be what as expected out of the system. This then hurt the Florida Retail Company in the end because of the fact that the computer system was a giant mess for the company. The FRC went wrong in the purchasing of the computer system because of a number of reasons. Not only are they the first customers to use the newly integrated system, but to have the systems delivered only a couple of weeks before the opening of the newly highly anticipated superstore was a poorly planned procedure. (Markland, 1998) therefore the goals of supply chain management are to reduce uncertainty and risks in the supply chain, thereby positively affecting inventory levels, cycle time, processes, and ultimately, end-customers service levels. The report will be under the case to finding the differences between strategic supply chain management and traditional purchasing and supply management; discuss and analyze the contribution of supply chain management to the success of this case organization and the practical implication of the supply chain management approach for operations managers in this case organization. 2. 0 Case review The title of this case is IBM used backward placement to improve supply-chain operations. The IBM PC Company Europe is facing relentless pressure from formidable competitors who frequently cut prices, tout rapid customer order response times, and continually introduce new products and features. In light of these pressures and record losses as a corporation, IMB needed to reduce operational costs and inventory and improve customer service. One of the targets of improvement efforts was the largest of the IBM personal computer plants, a 1. 3-million-square-foot factory in Greenock, Scotland. The pl ant, consisting of manufacturing, warehousing, and storage areas, annually accounted for 1. million PCs delivered to Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Management decided to examine the supply chain between the plant and customers to determine whether improvements could be made. Supply chain management and logistics gives managers an outline of the elements within each discipline, which together can improve competitiveness. Logistics is a term that refers to the management functions that support the complete cycle of material flow: from the purchase and internal control of production materials; to the planning and control of working-in-process; to purchasing, shipping, and distribution of the finished product. Many elements must be effectively managed within a companys total logistic system. It might include transportation, facilities, procurement and purchasing, packaging, warehousing and storage, inventory planning and control, demand forecasting, customer services, order processing, and salvage and crap disposal, and so on. Distribution is an important part of supply chain elements, Krajewski (1999) has defined distribution as the management of the flow of materials form manufacturers to customers and from warehouses to retailers, involving the storage and transportation of products. It involved three elements, which are placement of finished goods inventory, selection of transportation mode, and scheduling routing and carrier selection. In this case, it is more focus on the potential area for improvement was inventory placement. Before 1993, the distribution network in Europe consisted of IBM-managed distribution centers and transshipment points (facilities where shipments from various origins are reorganized and combined with other shipments destined for a particular distribution center0. he distribution centers would warehouse shipments until needed for a customer order originating in the country in which the distribution center was located. This approach placed the inventory close to the customer. When an order was received, the distribution center would configure it, which amounted to grouping the elements of the order, such as system units, monitors, country-specific keyboards, cables, documentation in the appropriate language, and various peripheral accessories. Once configured, the distribution center would ship the order to the customer and receive eplenishment inventory from Greenock. A fundamental decision is where to stock an inventory of finished goods. As what the IBM used a forward placement in this case as its inventory finished goods. Forward placement means locating stock closer to customers at a warehouse or distribution center or which wholesaler or retailer. It is proved that in this case, the company is not suitable for using the forward placement inventory. There are two serious problems with IBM of implementing of supply chain management. First, customer service levels were low. Invariable, the distribution center wouldnt have all the elements of the order in stock and would have to wait for a shipment from Greenock. Since each order was unique to the customer, it was difficult to forecast the specific elements, or their quantities, that a customer would request. Second, the costs of the distribution network were high. Freight rates, negotiated in each country, werent always the lowest. The operational costs of the country-specific distribution centers also were high. As can be proved in the case, an alternative approach that backward placement is more effectively suitable for the IBM to manage the supply-chain operations. Backward placement means holding the inventory at the manufacturing plant or maintaining no inventory of finished goods. To resolve the problem IBM decided to ship orders directly from Greenock to customers, bypassing the country distribution centers entirely. The resulting savings are approximately $40 million a year. By eliminating the country distribution centers and pooling the inventory at Greenock, IBM improved customer service levels and reduced finished goods inventories. In this case, the suitable inventory placement is the greatest effect of distribution in the supply chain management on inventory levels, efficiencies and costs. 3. 0 Differences between strategic supply chain management and traditional purchasing and supply management. Before the days of efficient transportation and storage systems, customers consumed goods close to where the goods were produced. Otherwise, the movement of goods was limited to what individuals could carry and store. Limitation in movement and storage systems generally constrained people to consumer the narrow range of goods produced locally. Today efficient and effective transportation and storage systems allow production of products all over the world for global consumption. The traditional supply chain often includes more than one company in series of supplier customer relationships. It is often define as the series of links and shared processes that involve all activities from the acquisition of raw materials to the delivery of finished goods to the end consumer. Raw materials enter into a manufacturing organization via a supply system and are transformed into finished goods. The finished goods are then supplied to customers through distribution system. A characteristic of supply chain management can be summarized as that the supply chain is thought of as a single entity, not a series of autonomous functions or segments. (Markland, 1998) and Slack (2001) has states supply chain management is the management of activities that procure raw materials, transform them into intermediate good and final products, and deliver the products to customers though a distribution system. These activities include the traditional purchasing function plus many other activities that are important to the relationship with suppliers and distributors. Where the traditional supply chain would push out a fixed line of one-size-fits-all items, hoping that customers would buy them, the value net in contrast allows unique customers to choose product or service attributes that they value the most: in effect, to design their own product then the value net configures itself, its suppliers, its manufacturing, service, and its delivery capabilities to meet the need of each customer or at least of each customers segment. It differentiates itself to supply one-size-fits one or customized products for each customer or customer grouping. It leverages operations and customer choice to drive strategic of supply management. The supply chain management includes the interactions between suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, and customers; this includes transportation, scheduling information, cash and credit transfers, as well as material transfers between them. To achieve a balance between costs and customer satisfaction, companys supply chain must be customer driven. It is customers business, products, culture, markets, and organizations to ensure that it is attuned to its customers need and requirements. So the customers are fully integrated into the companys supply chain to ensure competitive advantages for all cooperating parties. 4. 0 Contribution of supply chain management to the success of this case organization. The goals of supply chain management are to reduce uncertainty and risks in supply chain, thereby positively affecting inventory levels, cycle time, processes, and ultimately, end-customers service levels. The IBM is achieving signification competitive advantage by the way they configure and manage their supply chain operations. * For manufacturing used technique is to drop ship. Drop shipping means their supplier will ship directly to the end consumer, rather than to seller, saving the both time and reshipping costs. The cost saving measures includes the use of special packing, labels, and particular location of labels or bar codes. Another feature that might be added is size and number of units in each shipping container. In the IBM case, it decided to ship orders directly from Greenock to customers, bypassing the country distribution centers entirely. The resulting savings are approximately $40 million a year (source from: Gerald, 1996). Warehouse simplify routes and communication. Uncertainties in the procurement process and production, companies rely on the accumulation of inventory to help ensure a smooth flow into and through the manufacturing process. So warehousing logistics element performs these. In this case, as the IBM ship orders directly from Greenock to customers, therefore, the IBM has to communicate directly to the consumers. As a result, th e direct communication would avoid certain misunderstanding, in order to increasing the efficiency. On this way, the IBM simplify routes and reduce their cost as well, and probably more significantly, each factory has only to deal directly with their a few local customers; each customer only has to deal one supplier that is local warehouse. * Which mode of transports in physical distribution they choice? As well as the arrangement of the distribution system, physical distribution managers must decide on which mode of transport is best to distribution their products to their customers. (Mode of transport includes: road, rail, water, air, and pipeline. Each of these modes has different characteristics, which affect its suitability for the transportation of particular products. In this case, the IBM has chosen the very best of 7 of shipping companies to arrange a service to delivery the products directly to the consumers very timely, in order to achieve the best efficiency and building good relationships with the consumers. 5. 0 The practical implication of the supply chain management approach for operation manager in this case. Before days operations managers have seen their main responsibility lying within their own operation. However as operations becomes more focused on their materials and services, the contribution of purchasing and supply to the business increase in importance. Therefore, the operations manger implications of almost of supply chain management approach. The best way to address this issue is by first understanding the ways operations mangers can work with any supplier and the scope of their activities within a supply chain. In this case, building good relationships with both first-tier supplier and first-tier customers is the major approach, which the operation manager has implicated. First-tier suppliers involvement. Supply mangers lack the internal capabilities and/or external power resources to be able to direct innovation from the extended network of suppliers. In this case, The IBM works beyond the first-tier supply relationship to improve functionality and/or reduce costs on a continuous basis, normally using long-term collaborative relationships. And four basic sourcing options in first-tier suppliers approach that they have implicated, for example: * Supplier selection * Supply chain sourcing Supplier development * Supply chain management First-tier customers involvement. In this case, first-tier customers involve distribution centers, consumers that receive finished product from the organization. The operations mangers have implicated man approaches, for example: * Level of customer service, delivery lead time and technical support selection * Level of customer service at minimum cost setting * How much of each items should be stocked * Transportation mod es selection 6. 0 Conclusion. A companys competitiveness rests on its ability to provide the right goods and services when and where they are needed. The supply chain is an important component of any companys value chain, which links the companys operating processes to both its suppliers and customers. The integrative and multifunctional nature of supply chain management provides an avenue for more efficiently and effectively satisfying customers needs. In the IBM case, it firstly identified there are some major problem about the high cost of operation, and low level of customer services. When it used the backward placement to recovered these problems, as a result it saving a huge amount of costs, and it build a good relationship with the customers, however, the IBM has showed some improvements of supply-chain operations by better understanding of the theatrical points of views tested in the practical realities.

Iran Awakening free essay sample

History of the Middle East â€Å"Iran Awakening† â€Å"One Woman’s Journey to Reclaim Her Life and Country† This book, â€Å"Iran Awakening†, is a novel written by Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi. Ebadi weaves the story of her life in a very personal and unique way, telling the account of the overthrow of the shah and the establishment of a new, religious fundamentalist regime in which opposition to the government are imprisoned, tortured, and murdered. By simply reading the Prologue, one can see the love Ebadi has for Iran and her people. This love that Ebadi has for the oppressed of Iran is a theme that appears throughout the book and seems to be a large factor behind her drive to stand up for those who cannot stand up for themselves. In the first chapter, Ebadi recounts her childhood from her birth on June 21st, 1947 in Hamedan, to her childhood in Tehran. Something that may come as a surprise to a reader was the equality between male and female in Ebadi’s home. We will write a custom essay sample on Iran Awakening or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page This equality, however, was not common in most Iranian households, â€Å"Male children enjoyed an exalted status, spoiled and cosseted†¦ They often felt themselves the center of the family’s orbit†¦ Affection for a son was an investment†, says Ebadi. In Iranian culture, it was considered natural for a father to love his son more than his daughter. In Ebadi’s home, though, she describes her parent’s affections, attentions, and discipline as equally distributed. This equality in the home seems to play a large role in creating the strong, determined woman Ebadi would come to be, â€Å"My father’s championing of my independence, from the play yard to my later decision to become a judge, instilled a confidence in me that I never felt consciously, but came to regard as my most valued inheritance. † (Ebadi, 12). One may also find it interesting that as a child, Ebadi did not know anything of politics; until the coup detat of 1953. On August 19th, 1953, the beloved Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh was toppled in a coup d’etat. Ebadi says that, as children, this news meant nothing. But the adults could see what Ebadi, at the time, could not. The book makes it clear that, to those of Iran who were not paid to think otherwise, Mossadegh was revered as a nationalist hero and the father of Iranian independence for his bold move of nationalizing Iran’s oil industry which had been, until then, controlled by the West. Therefore, it was obvious that this was the beginning of a vast change for Iran. Before the coup, Ebadi’s father, a longtime supporter of the prime minister, had advanced to become minister of agriculture. In this new regime, Ebadi’s father was forced out of his job, fated to languish in lower posts for the rest of his career. This was what caused a silence of all things political in the Ebadi home. Entering law school in 1965 was a â€Å"turning point for me†, says Ebadi. The vast interest in Iran’s politics was shocking to her after coming from a home in which politics were never spoken of. After toying with the idea of studying political science, Ebadi decided on pursuing a judgeship; which is exactly what she did. In March of 1970, at the age of twenty-three, Ebadi became a judge. In 1975, after 6 months of getting to know each other Ebadi married Javad Tavassoni. Her husband, unlike many Iranian men, coped well with her professional ambitions. In the autumn of 1977, there was, what Ebadi describes as, a â€Å"shift in the streets of Tehran†. The shah’s regime was trying to reduce the power of the judiciary by setting up the ‘Mediating Council’, an extrajudicial outfit that would have allowed cases to be judged outside of the formal justice system. Some of the justices wrote a protest letter arguing against the council, demanding that all cases had to be tried before a court of law. This was the first collective action taken by the judges against the shah. Ebadi signed the letter. In January of 1978, President Jimmy Carter arrived in Tehran, Iran and described it as an â€Å"island of stability†, something he later came to regret. Not long after President Carter’s statement, a newspaper article aggressively attacking Khomeini inspired a revolt among the people of Iran, calling for his [Khomeini’s] return; the police shot into the crowd and killed many men. By the summer of 1978, protests had grown larger, making it impossible to avoid them. In early August, a crowded cinema in Abadan was burned to the round. This horrific event burned 400 people alive. The shah blamed this event on religious conservatives; Khomeini accused the SAVAK, the regime’s secret police, which was a force of legendary brutality against the government’s opponents. This tragedy pushed many Iranians against the shah. They now realized that the shah was not merely an American puppet. Ebadi herself says that she was ‘drawn’ to the opposition. She says that it did not seem a contradiction for her, an educated professional woman, to back it (Ebadi, 33). She had no idea that she was backing her own eventual defeat. Ebadi uses something close to irony as she describes a morning when she and several judges and officials stormed into the minister of justice’s office. The minister was not there, instead a startled elder judge sat behind the desk. â€Å"He looked up at us in amazement and his gaze halted when he saw my face. â€Å"You! You of all people, why are you here? † he asked, bewildered and stern. â€Å"Don’t you know that you’re supporting people who will take away your job if they come to power? † â€Å"I’d rather be a free Iranian than an enslaved attorney,† I retorted boldly, self-righteous to the core. (Ebadi, 34) On January 16th, 1979, the shah fled Iran, ending two millennia of rule by Persian kings. The streets were over-crowded with euphoric citizens, Ebadi herself being one of them. On February 1st, 1979, Khomeini returned to Iran. For about a month, the country of Iran hung in the balance. In most of the cities an emergency militar y had gone into immediate effect and Khomeini had ordered people to go back into their homes by nightfall with the instruction to go onto their roof at 9pm and scream, Allaho akbar, â€Å"God is greatest†. On February 11th, Khomeini exhorted people to defy the 4pm curfew the military had imposed by coming out into the streets. Ebadi remembers going into the streets, hearing sounds of the gunshots echoing, and taking in the frenzied scene of emotion. The next day, the 22nd of Bahman on the Iranian calendar, the military surrendered and the prime minister fled the country. The country rejoiced, including Ebadi herself. She says, looking back, she has to laugh at the feeling of pride that washed over her for it took scarcely a month for her to realize that she had willingly participated in her own defeat. Ebadi, 38) Merely days after the revolution’s victory, a man named Fathollah Bani-Sadr was appointed provisional overseer of the Ministry of Justice. Expecting praise from this man, Ebadi was shocked when he said, â€Å"Don’t you think that out of respect for our beloved Imam Khomeini, who has graced Iran with his return, it would be better if you covered your hair? † This headscarf â€Å"invitation† was the first in a long string of restraints on the women of Iran. After being away for less than a month, Ebadi could already see the changes that had taken place in Tehran. The streets were renamed after Shia imams, martyred clerics, and Third World heroics of an anti-imperial struggle. † (Ebadi, 41) Her fellow co-workers, male and female, were dirty and smelled. The bow tie had been banned, being â€Å"deemed a symbol of the West’s evils, smelling of cologne signaled counterrevolutionary tendencies, and riding to the ministry car to work was evidence of class privilege† (Ebadi 42). Rumors spread that Islam barred women from being judges. Ebadi was the most distinguished female judge in all of Tehran. So, upon hearing these rumors, she tried to counter her worries with her connections; but even this small comfort proved to be in vain. In the final days of 1979, Ebadi was effectively stripped of her judgeship. She stubbornly stood, though six months pregnant, as the committee flippantly tossed a sheet of paper at her and said, â€Å"Show up to the research office when you’re done with your vacation†, her ‘vacation’ being her maternity leave. The men then began to talk about her as though she was not there, saying things like, â€Å"Without even starting at the research office, she wants a vacation! † another said, â€Å"They’re disorganized! and another, â€Å"They’re so unmotivated; it’s clear they don’t want to be working! † †¦ The point Ebadi was trying to make is clear by the telling of these statements. Most men, especially those in the government, had lost what little respect they had previously held f or women prior to the Revolution. That much, at least, seemed very clear. The post-Revolution’s effect on women was a grim one. As Ebadi read in a newspaper piece titled â€Å"Islamic Revolution†, â€Å"the life of a woman’s was now half that of a man (for instance, if a car hit both on the street, the cash compensation due to the woman’s family was half of that due the man’s), a oman’s testimony in court as a witness now counted only half as much as that of a man’s; a woman had to ask her husband permission to divorce. The drafters of the penal code had apparently consulted the seventh century for legal advice. † (Ebadi, 51). Ebadi’s head pounded with rage as she read this news. â€Å"The grim statues that I would spend the rest of my life fighting stared back at me from the page†, she writes. One effect of the new Islamic penal code was the imbalance it caused within Ebadi’s marriage. â€Å"The day Javad and I married each other, we joined our lives together as two equals†, she writes. But under these laws, he stayed a person and I became a chattel. They permitted him to divorce me at will, take custody of our future children, and acquire three wives and stick them in the house with me. † (Ebadi, 53). Ebadi knew her husband had no intentions of putting this new law to use, but she still could not accept the distraction the imbalance between them was causing her. At length, Ebadi came up with a solution: within the course of the next morning, her and her husband drove to the local notary where her husband readily signed a postnuptual agreement. This granted Ebadi the right to divorce her husband without permission, as well as primary custody of their children in the event of a separation. â€Å"Why are you doing this? † the astonished notary asked [Javad]. â€Å"My decision is irrevocable, â€Å" Javad replied. â€Å"I want to save my life. † This eased Ebadi’s feeling of unrest greatly, her and her husband were equals again, but a small part of her was still at unease. â€Å"After all, I couldn’t drag all the men of Iran down to the notary, could I? † (Ebadi, 54). September 22nd, 1980 marked the day that Saddam Hussein launched a full-blown invasion on Iran. Though the popular discontent with the revolution had by no means abated: as Ebadi mentions, during the war, â€Å"the newspapers still had long lists of the executed, all the former regime’s officials and counterrevolutionaries who had been shot or hung, and sometimes pages filled with macabre photos of gallows and dead bodies. † Despite all of this, the people went on, just as they had through the upheaval after the revolution. In short, the decade after the revolution was one filled with much strife, war, and repression. This strife first became personal to Ebadi in the form of the political imprisonment and murder of her brother-in-law Fuad at the young age of 24. â€Å"Fuad’s death made me even more obstinate†, she writes. â€Å"We had been told not to discuss his death with anyone, so I talked about his execution night and day. In taxis, at the corner shop, in line for bread, I would approach perfect strangers and tell them about this sweet boy who was sentenced to twenty years in prison for selling newspapers, and then executed. † (Ebadi, 89) This tragic event in Ebadi’s life, the hot outrage that it made her feel, is remembered as the spark which would lead to her return to legal practice in the 1990’s. Things had, of course, continued to happen since Fuad’s death in the fall of 1988. In 1989, Khomeini had died, the komitehs harsh, unnecessary punishments grew more serious and frequent: Ebadi writes of one instance in which her friend’s fiance is whipped 80 times with no legal grounds whatsoever. The extreme laws against women grew more and more severe. When Ebadi was arrested for the first time (for a crime of wardrobe), she mentions an elderly woman who was arrested for the â€Å"crime† of wearing slippers. Yet over time, it again â€Å"became fashionable for the daughters of Traditional families to attend college†, Ebadi writes. â€Å"Throughout the nineties, the number of women with college degrees rose steadily, and eventually the women began to outnumber the men in universities by a small margin. † This new wave of educated women emerging from Iran created a people that was no longer content to slip back into their old, traditional roles in the home. This new attitude was often met by extreme clashes within the family. Ebadi writes of one such woman who, upon requesting a divorce from her husband, was refused by her father. Facing a lifetime of unhappiness, the woman doused herself in gasoline and set herself ablaze. In 1992, Ebadi again began practicing law, this time exclusively taking on pro bono cases. She pored over religious texts, attempting to gain sufficient knowledge to argue against particular interpretations that would claim that, within Islam, discriminatory interpretations were to be made. Ebadi began to take on only the cases of women and children, for these were the ones who were constantly at the mercy of a sick, twisted government. Ebadi took on many cases; one was that of the family of Zahra Kanzemi, an Iranian journalist who had been killed in police custody in 2003. Another was that of a student who was beaten to death by paramilitaries during a 1999 protest; Ebadi herself was imprisoned during the course of this case. While digging through the paperwork for a case representing the children of a couple who had been slain in their home, Ebadi stumbled across the official authorization of her own assassination. The response Ebadi has to this shocking information was one of the major instances that. I believe, greatly endears her to the reader as an extremely brace and powerful woman. â€Å"I wasn’t scared, really, nor was I angry†, she writes. Instead, Ebadi simply wanted to know why. One thing that is truly unique about Ebadi is the way in which she writes about her life choices. She writes about them as if they were natural, obvious, and just the thing anyone would have done in her place. In reality, this is not so. Many others around Ebadi had the education and ability to make the same choices that Ebadi had made, but they did not, some even emigrating during the Iran-Iraq war. For Ebadi, patriotic to the core, the only choice was to stay. She has a love for her country that defies the instability and repression the government tries to place upon her. Ebadi knows, deep within herself, that the government is not the country. The only moral choice she could live with was to fight injustice with law; the very law the injustices claimed themselves to be. Following the ‘Reform Era’, you can see Ebadi breathe a huge sigh of relief. The years of constant anxiousness over everything, even her girl’s birthday parties, were behind her. The days when young people would be whipped for venturing into the mountains together, women would be detained or lashed for simply wearing a smudge of makeup or nail-polish, or for wearing any color clothing besides navy or black tones, were happily retired. Moderate President Khatami sought to pull back the system’s interference in the people’s private lives, but as Ebadi states, â€Å"President Khatami deserves only a measure of credit for this shift. Really it was because my daughters’ uncowed generation started fighting back, and, through the force of their sheer numbers and boldness, made it unfeasible for the state to impose itself as before. † This book was, in my opinion, a fantastic portrait of a life lived in truth. It was a delight to see how Ebadi’s simple courage and outright stubbornness made a vast difference in the lives of many, even in the face of extreme adversity, like her own possible assassination. In conclusion, I will once again quote Ebadi, as she articulates the dignity of the reform movement within Iran. It so happened that I believed in the secular separation of religion and government because, fundamentally, Islam, like any religion, is subject to interpretation. It can be interpreted to oppress women or interpreted to liberate them I am a lawyer by training, and know only too well the permanent limitations of trying to enshrine inalienable rights in sources that lack fixed terms and definitions. But I am also a citizen of the Islamic Republic, and I know the futility of approaching the question any other way. My objective is not to vent my own political sensibilities but to push for a law that would save a family like Leilas — a child who was raped and murdered — from becoming homeless in their quest to finance the executions of their daughters convicted murderers. If Im forced to ferret through musty books of Islamic jurisprudence and rely on sources that stress the egalitarian ethics of Islam, then so be it. Is it harder this way? Of course it is. But is there an alternative battlefield? Desperate wishing aside, I cannot see one. – Shirin Ebadi