better – The Corrigan Encore

Scientists and researchers call it the Hawthorne effect. Management at the Hawthorne Electric plant just outside of Chicago wanted to understand how they could make workers become more effective. Changes were made to the working conditions and then researchers measured the employees productivity after the changes. After every change the researchers noticed higher productivity levels followed by a return to the productivity levels prior to the change.

Turns out if a change is made and observed the act of observing the participants makes the change work. The Hawthorne effect is an observer effect. The observer effect is the fact that observing a situation or phenomenon necessarily changes it.

Quantum Physics has been dealing with the Observer effect for years. Here is an interesting interview about the observer effect and Quantum Physics.

My wife tells the kids that there are cameras everywhere they go. Skate park, cameras there, mall, McDonalds, the city park, cameras everywhere. She doesn’t do this to instill fear she does this because she knows that the observer effect works and she wants them on their best behavior.

My mom would tell me that God is always watching and my dad would tell me that you can never get away from yourself. Holding yourself accountable requires a pretty high amount of self awareness and pragmatism. My wife has often told me that I cannot expect the world to be as self aware as I am (maybe this was a compliment I think it was more of a be easier on people and set some lower expectations).

Someone is always observing and measuring us, maybe it is you and family members, and friends. It is definitely family members and friends but not always you and really I think it should be us measuring ourselves against ourselves.

My son ran for school and he would have his numbers for his 3 and 5 mile runs on printouts he would show me. Some of the lines had the letters PB on them. I asked him what the letters meant and he said Personal Best. Ourselves that is our best measure and the one we should all be using. Did we do better? Did we meet our goals? Are we improving?

You can and will get better, just be patient with your self and measure what you are doing and have done. If you just get 1 % better a day in about 1/3 of a year you will be 100 % better than when you started!

It has been 100 years since women have gotten the right to vote in the United States of America and there is still dramatic inequality when it comes to women’s and men’s rights in the United States of America. Right now The United States is ranked 17th for women. Just all around there are 16 more countries, all of which have less money, influence and power than the United States and yet women are treated better there.

It’s not the money, or military might that makes a nation good or bad, it is the way the nation treats its citizens.

A Nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but it’s lowest ones
Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom

The United States has one of the worst maternal mortality rates in the world, if the anti choice movement takes away the right to abortion it can be assumed that this rate will grow even larger. In 2020 17 women died for every 100 000 births. To compare the UK was 7, New Zealand was 3, and South Korea was 2.8. In the top ten richest countries in the world the United States has the highest rate for killing women while they are giving birth.

1 out of six women in the United States have been raped in their lifetime. Canada, New Zealand, Sweden, Denmark are among the top ten safest places for women, the United States is the tenth least safe country in the world for women.

Top ten safest countries for women

Top ten most dangerous countries for women

India
Afghanistan
Syria
Somalia
Saudi Arabia
Pakistan
Democratic Republic of Congo
Yemen
Nigeria
United States

After the civil war came the reconstruction period in the United States and that was the beginning of Affirmative Action. Affirmative Action is a plan to address racism in the United States. The program was working well and getting better until somethings happened in the supreme court and the White House.

In 1978 the supreme court ruled that quotas for measuring affirmative action were unconstitutional, in 2017the Whitehouse advocated for using “ace-neutral alternatives” for admitting students.

Affirmative Action was moving and had a way to measure it’s success however there have been some bumps in the road. Affirmative action also benefits women when it is executed and protected.

The playing field is not equal women and minorities start and often stay at lower levels than white men. To argue against this is to argue against the numbers and facts.

To make the United States better for women we must treat women with more that respect. We must bring women to the level of the white male in all facets of life. In the home, the workplace. the religions, and the government.

Women are 51% of the population but only make up 20% of representation in the government. That has to be fixed and it starts with our votes. The majority of Americans did vote for a women president however the antiquated broken system that the United States uses to count votes made it so that the unpopular male won. So we are getting there now we just need to look at the rules that have been created by the white males to keep white males in power. Its a lot of work but it can and will be done and it needs to start with men. We need to show women more respect than we do our fellow men. We need to be sure that we always consider representation when we are hiring, and we need to be aware of our training and unconscious bias against women.

Instead of scoffing at this post and ones like it perhaps consider your own actions or inactions. I certainly am going to try. I know that we can do better than 17th place!!

Tag: better

Look what I can do

17th really man…