Suchergebnisse

The image of man the warrior has long been joined to that of woman the submissive victim. Even the earliest records present each sex as feeling victimized by the other, so that replacing male by female rule would do nothing to solve the problem of violence. Rather, an androgynous role & image are needed. In present society females are victims in many ways: as having limited rights as compared to males, as objects of rape & pornography, as victims of brutal husbands or fathers, & also as victims of direct violent crime & of governmental violence & torture. Females also act as aggressors, inflicting brutalities on children under their care in many cases, & also using peculiarly 'feminine' techniques such as tongue-lashing, manipulation, & trickery. Any reduction in the victimization of females will require their equal participation in police, courts, & armed forces. W. H. Stoddard.

The author sees the measurement of world welfare as social action because in the course of measurement our ideas of the world change, leading, hopefully, to the initiation of changes in the world itself. She is therefore interested in evolving indicators not for system states but for system processes, of which four form the core: participation (in the process of shaping the conditions of life), production (of food, goods, energy, information, and services), distribution (of all that is produced and the manner in which it is shared by the various sectors of society), and 'nurturance' (empathic, altruistic, caring responses that enhance human growth). There is a fifth Process, equally important (because it acts as a multiplier to other processes) but difficult to measure: the process of 'joying', which imports the dimension of expansiveness to all human acts.

A typology of nations is established based on resource investments in 2 areas: (1) "the development of cultural potential for integrative activity," & (2) "the development of the military potential for hostilities." Military spending per capita is used to measure the latter, while a cultural potential for transnationalism index (CPT) is developed to measure the former. The components of the index are based on published statistical data & include measures of the knowledge stock & utilization of the country (eg, total book production, cinema attendance, literacy rates) as well as existing action networks, eg, the number of women's nongovernmental organizations & a transnational potential rating for the country's majority religion. X rankings for 124 countries of over 1 million populations were compiled using data from the late 1960's. 10 pairs of nations from high, medium, & low GNP levels were selected to develop a typology of orientations based on CPT scores, GNP, & military spending by rankings. The influences of wealth, urbanization, & size on CPT & military potential for the 20 countries are explored, & an attempt is made to summarize these complex relationships. 5 Tables, 6 Figures, 1 Appendix. J. N. Mayer.