Issues facing the functions of Operations Management

Issues facing the functions of Operations Management Operations management is the business function Responsible for Planning, Coordinating and controlling the resources needed to produce a companys goods and services. It involves managing human capital, machineries , technologies , information and many other resources. Operations management is the central core function of every company . even though the company is big or small, provides physical goods or services ,every company has an operating function , the role of operations management function is to transform companys raw inputs in to the finished outputs such as products or services. Inputs include human capitals, technology, Materials and Processes such as building and equipments. Outputs are goods and services which the company produces. Operations management is responsible for combining and coordinating all the available resources required to produce a proposed product or services. This include designing, the product, deciding the whole required resources , scheduling, inventor y management , quality control and job design, The Transformation Process Diagram History of Operations Management Operations management did not emerge as a formal field of study until the late of 1950s and early 1960s, It was Scholar , who recognize that all productions system face a set of problems and to stress the system approach to viewing operations process. In 1700s , the industrial revolution had a significant impact on the way gods are produced today. Prior to this movement products were made by hand by skilled people at their shops or their homes. Each product was unique . but industrial revolutions changed all that invention of machines helped to replace human power to machine power . in 1900s scientific management were introduced .it is an approach to management that focused in improving out puts restructuring jobs and selecting acceptable levels of worker out put. Scientific management brought the concepts of analysis and measurement of the technical aspects of work design. In 1980s operations management saw a huge developments Just in time concept were designed by Japanese to achieve high volume production using minimum level of inventory . this is achieved through coordination of flow of materials so that the right parts arrives at the right place at right time in the right quantity. As the customers demand in higher quality products and service , companies were forced to focus on quality in order to remain competent. Total Quality Management is a philosophy developed by quality gurus such as W Edwards Deming , that aggressively seeks to improve product quality by eliminating defects and making quality an all- encompassing organizational philosophy . with TQM every one in the company is responsible for the quality . Supply Chain Management system has been introduced in the same period to manage the flow of material and information from suppliers and buyers of raw materials al the way to the final customer. The objective is to reduce cost and improve q uality and service delivery by every one in the chain .Supply chain management became famous with the development of information technology and E commerce . electronic Commerce can occur between business known as Business to Business(B2B) , between business and customer ( B2C) and Customer to Customer(C2C) which makes up highest percentage of transaction in between business and customers . Today operational management environment is very different from what it was just few years ago. Customers demands better quality, greater speed and low cost. In order to succeed , companies have to be master s of the basics of operations management. Advanced information technology tools and software are being used to identify the resources needed to coordinate all activities involved in producing and delivering products to customer s. to gain advantage over their competitor companies are continuesly looking for ways to better respond to customers . it needs companies a deep knowledge about their customers and to meet their demands . The development of Customer Relationship Management has made it possible for the companies to understand the customers needs . Another characteristics of todays Operation management Environment is the increased use of Cross Functional Decision Making that requires coordinated interaction and decision making between the different business functions of the organizations. Employees from each function must interact and coordinate their decisions. this requires employees to understand the roles of other business functions and the goals of the business as a whole , in addition to their own expertise Service Vs Manufacturing Operations Operations can be divided in to two main categories, service operations and manufacturing operations. Manufacturing operations producing physical and tangible goods which can be stored in to the ware house before they are required, but in service operations products are intangible products that cannot be produced ahead of time. In manufacturing operations firm customers doesnt have direct contact with the operations . customers contact will be redirected through dealers , distributors and customer care centers . for example a customer is buying a computer in a super market never comes in to contact with the manufacturing company. But in service organization the customer will be typically present during the creation of the service. Car service centers, Hospitals , fast food centers are some examples of service operations. There are some manufacturing organizations provides service as part of their offering , and some service operations organizations produces physical goods that they deliver to the customer during service delivery. A barber shop may sell their own hair care products to their customers Operations management Decisions Operations management decision can be divided in to three levels . that is Strategic , Tactical and Operational Strategic Decision Making: this decision are long term decision which set directions for the entire company . they faces questions such as what will be the vision of the organizations what market the company should concentrate ,how the company should compete win the field etc. these levels of decision are made by companys topple level executives only Tactical Decision Making: short term decisions focus on particular departments are being taken in tactical decision making level. this is the level which makes decision of how ,and why questions , such as how many products should be manufactured and which technology has to be used , and how will be the quality of the product etc. Operational Decision Making: This level of decisions mainly used for day to day issues. Such as work scheduling, replacement, maintenance etc. Decision making Levels Hierarchy OPERATIONAL Role of an operations manager Operations managers are responsible for managing activities which will be a part of the production of goods and services. Their responsibilities can be divide in to two categories , Direct and Indirect Responsibilities, Direct Contains managing both the operations process, embracing design, planning, control, performance improvement, and operations strategy. Their indirect responsibilities are interacting with those managers in other functional areas within the company they have direct or indirect responsibilities on operations. Such areas include marketing, finance, accounting, personnel and engineering. Operations managers responsibilities are : Human resource management the people working in an organization to create a good or service or provide support to those who do. Man Power and Human Resource Management are a key resource of all organizations. Asset management A Companys buildings, Machinery, material and Inventory are directly connecting with the operations functions. Cost management most of the costs including fixed and variable cost of producing goods or services are directly related to the costs of acquiring resources, moving them or delivering them to the end user . For many organizations in the private sector, cost cut through efficient operations management gives them a critical competitive edge. Even organizations in the non-profit sector, the ability to manage costs is no less important. Decision making is an important responsibility of all operations managers. Decisions should be made in: Designing the operations function Analyzing the operations function Improving the operations function Controlling an Operating The five main kinds of decision in each of these relate to: The processes, which is used to produce products or services The quality of Products or services The quantity of Products or services The inventory , which is used to produce or supporting the production of goods or services Human resource management, including recruiting, scheduling, Performance Appraisal etc. A Case Study Maharaja Electricals PVT Ltd Maharaja Electricals Pvt Ltd is an ISO 9001 company based on Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India . Since its establishment with a single plant at Chennai before 15 years they remained the major suppliers of Mixers in South India. They collect completed spares from local manufacturers with strict quality checking and assemble them in their assembling units. They have experienced engineers and technicians in both electrical and mechanical disciplines. The company now has 20% of the South Indian mixer market. The major attraction to Maharaja Mixers is the low prices since all components are indigenously developed but still with quality assurance. Most of the middle class families always prefer Maharaja just because of their easily affordable costs. Now to cop up with the increased customer requirements from neighboring states, especially from Kerala, the company is planning to install a new plant in Palaghat, the border area between Tamil Nadu and Kerala. They are planning for an assembly lne with a conveyor belt to minimize the total time required for assembling. They prefer a U-shaped assembly line which may reduce the total installation space. Also workers at different workstations can be close so that one can help others or even handle others work when one is absent from the seat. The conveyor stops for a specific interval of time so that each work station can complete its work within that time slice. This is the time for which the basic structure of the product is available to a workstation; called Cycle Time. The main problem here is to identify the various steps involved in total assembly of a mixer. Then the cycle time for the conveyor is to be calculated. Determining the minimum number of workstations and calculating t he efficiency of the line is also a concern. The company procures the following spares from local suppliers with strict quality control in bulk. Electrical motor assembly Plastic base to fix the assembly Rubber bushes to be fixed at the bottom of the base Electrical lead to the power supply Plastic cover for the motor assembly On/off switch on plastic cover Speed regulator Plastic circular rotator Jar attachments Cardboard packing box Screws of various sizes With their ample experience in assembling the company has identified time requirements for each fixations and a linear order for assembling process. That is tabulated as follows. Process Map Theoretical Approach of the Problem, Pareto chart, Pareto Theory A Pareto chart is a bar graph. The lengths of the bars represent frequency or cost (time or money), and are arranged with longest bars on the left and the shortest to the right. In this way the chart visually depicts which situations are more significant. In the following Pareto diagram compares the available time, performance time and idle time comparison of six work stations. The diagram clearly shows at work station 1 there is no idle time for the conveyor belt. So employees with high skills and speed must be posted here. Workstation 1 is the critical point in this assembly unit since all other assembly works pre requires this assembly. Currently the assembling units are installed in an assembling unit where assembled parts are shifted from one place to another manually. It is observed with clock stop analysis that 15 minutes are required solely for shifting components to next shifting unit. Clearly here we can apply so called Pareto Principle in the situation. This principle is famed with the name of Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto who created a mathematical formula to describe the unequal distribution of wealth in his country, observing that twenty percent of the people owned eighty percent of the wealth. The principle is also known as 20-80 rule , the Law of Vital Few and principle of factor sparsity. Later the Management thinker Joseph M Juran adopted the idea to Management Principles. Jurans assumption is that most of the results in any situation are determined by a small number of causes. For example 20% of the customers determine 80% of the sales in a trade fair. Here in our problem 30% of the total time is required for just transferring components from one table to another. Reducing this time substantially can save total assembling time and thus can improve efficiency of the total system. So installation of a conveyor belt in the factory is a better alternative. Solution The precedence requirements clearly mention which tasks are to be completed before starting a new one. In the above table before covering the motor assembly with an outer cover ( Task D ) the motor assembly must be fixed on a plastic base (Task A) and electrical leads must be connected to the assembly(Task C). Similarly certain other tasks are also having precedence requirements. A work station is a place or a table where the conveyor stops for a cycle time with the basic structure on it. After that conveyor moves so that the basic structure goes to the next work station where it can perform additional fittings. The first thing is to identify the task with highest cycle time. It is normally called bottle neck task. The conveyor at least has to stop this much of time for a workstation. The cycle time cannot be les than the duration of this task. In Mahararajas case connecting electrical lead to the power supply to the motor assembly is the bottle neck operation. The cycle time is therefore 6 minutes as per the table. If the cycle time is kept less than this Task C cannot be completed. Then determining the minimum number of workstations is the next problem to be solved. Theoretically the minimum number of workstations can be calculated by dividing the total time requirement with cycle time. So here as per the table the total task time is 30 minutes and the cycle time is 6 minutes. So Minimum number of workstations = 30/6 = 5 work stations. Then the next problem is to determine which tasks are to be assigned to which work stations. Here we have to use some heuristics. In this case the heuristics selected is called the Longest Operation Time (LOT) rule. According to this rule the top priority is assigned to task with longest operation time. In this case Task C is the longest task with an operations time of 6 minutes. This task has the highest priority assignment over first workstation. The table also shows that it has no precedence requirements ie no other task need to be completed to begin Task C. so task C can be assigned to the first workstation. An entry can be made to the following table. Heuristics Steps Workstation Prioritized Task Assigned Task Task Time Remaining Time Remaining Eligible Task 1 1 C C 6 0 0 The only prioritized task for workstation 1 is task C and that is assigned to first workstation. The cycle time is 6 minutes and that is equal to the time requirement of task C. so no remaining time is left for other tasks to perform in this work station. So no more tasks can be assigned to first workstation. At the next step the tasks assigned to the second workstation are to identified. From the table the next task with longest operation time requirement is task A which also requires no precedent operations. The task is to fix the motor assembly with the electrical lead(fixed at workstation 1 by task C) on a plastic base. Heuristics Steps Workstation Prioritized Task Assigned Task Task Time Remaining Time Remaining Eligible Task 1 1 C C 6 0 0 2 2 A A 5 1 0 Since task A requires only 5 minutes, 1 minute is excess at the second workstation. But since we have no tasks which require 1 minutes only no other tasks can be assigned here. At the next step we have longest tasks D, F or H with en execution time of 3 minutes. But F and H have pre requirements. For task F task D must be completed. For task H, tasks B,E,F and G are to be completed. At this point of time both pre requirements are not satisfied. The pre requirements of task D are completion of task A and C which is already accomplished. So the preference goes to task D. Heuristics Steps Workstation Prioritized Task Assigned Task Task Time Remaining Time Remaining Eligible Task 1 1 C C 6 0 0 2 2 A A 5 1 0 3 3 D D 3 3 B Here after assigning Task D 3 minutes are remaining. From the table all tasks with 3 minutes operation time requirement also have pre requirements of completion of other tasks. So the next preferable job is task B whose time requirement is only 2 minutes. Heuristics Steps Workstation Prioritized Task Assigned Task Task Time Remaining Time Remaining Eligible Task 1 1 C C 6 0 0 2 2 A A 5 1 0 3 3 D D 3 3 B 4 3 B B 2 1 0 The next step is to assign task in work station 4 , here we can consider task F and Task h with longest path of 3 minutes ,.But task h have pre requirements so task F can be assigned in work station 4 Heuristics Steps Workstation Prioritized Task Assigned Task Task Time Remaining Time Remaining Eligible Task 1 1 C C 6 0 0 2 2 A A 5 1 0 3 3 D D 3 3 B 4 3 B B 2 1 0 5 4 F F 3 3 E,G In work station 4 task F have used only 3 minute. to utilize the remaining time in work station 4 , task E, or t ask G can be assign in work station 4 , Task E is assigned in work station 4 Heuristics Steps Workstation Prioritized Task Assigned Task Task Time Remaining Time Remaining Eligible Task 1 1 C C 6 0 0 2 2 A A 5 1 0 3 3 D D 3 3 B 4 3 B B 2 1 0 5 4 F F 3 3 E,G 6 4 E,G E 2 1 G The next step is to assign suitable task in next work Station . next suitable task which can be assigned in workstation 5 is task G . Heuristic Steps Workstation Prioritized Task Assigned Task Task Time Remaining Time Remaining Eligible Task 1 1 C C 6 0 0 2 2 A A 5 1 0 3 3 D D 3 3 B 4 3 B B 2 1 0 5 4 F F 3 3 E,G 6 4 E,G E 2 1 G 7 5 G G 2 4 H,I,J Task G will take only 2 minutes to complete the task . work station 5 can be assigned for some other tasks , next available tasks are Task H, I ,J , the longest path among these three tasks are with task H of 3 minute . So we can assign task H in work station 5. Heuristics Steps Workstation Prioritized Task Assigned Task Task Time Remaining Time Remaining Eligible Task 1 1 C C 6 0 0 2 2 A A 5 1 0 3 3 D D 3 3 B 4 3 B B 2 1 0 5 4 F F 3 3 E,G 6 4 E,G E 2 1 G 7 5 G G 2 4 H,I,J 8 5 H H 3 1 I,JÂ   Here after there are two tasks left . Task I, Task J, But to do the Task J , Task I must be completed . so Task I can be assigned in to work station 6 Heuristics Steps Workstation Prioritized Task Assigned Task Task Time Remaining Time Remaining Eligible Task 1 1 C C 6 0 0 2 2 A A 5 1 0 3 3 D D 3 3 B 4 3 B B 2 1 0 5 4 F F 3 3 E,G 6 4 E,G E 2 1 G 7 5 G G 2 4 H,I,J 8 5 H H 3 1 I,J Â   9 6 I,J I 2 4 J Task L have used only 2 minutes to complete the task, that is it remains 4 minutes in work station 6 , so we can assign Task J in work station 6 Heuristics Steps Workstation Prioritized Task Assigned Task Task Time Remaining Time Remaining Eligible Task 1 1 C C 6 0 0 2 2 A A 5 1 0 3 3 D D 3 3 B 4 3 B B 2 1 0 5 4 F F 3 3 E,G 6 4 E,G E 2 1 G 7 5 G G 2 4 H,I,J 8 5 H H 3 1 I JÂ   9 6 I,J I 2 4 J 10 6 J J 2 2 Â  0 Assignments of Works to the work station Work Station 1 2 3 4 5 6 Total Available Time 6 6 6 6 6 6 36 Performance Time 6 5 5 5 5 4 30 Idle Time 0 1 1 1 1 2 6 The last table shows that at least 6 workstations are required which is different from the calculated theoretical minimum. Efficiency of the assembly line is performance time/ available time X 100 Here 30/36 X 100 = 83.33 %. Ideal efficiency is 100 %. Recommendations It is recommended to use U shaped Conveyor belt and 3 work stations should be in one side and the remaining 3 workstations should be in other side so that the idle work station can help the busy work station. The conveyor belt can be drawn as below

Everyone Has a Right to Choose Euthanasia Essay -- Euthanasia Physicia

Everyone Has a Right to Choose Euthanasia    Everybody faces death eventually. While some people abhor the impending experience, others may await it excitedly. Regardless of one's expectations, most people do not wish for a painful end. If a situation arises where one must make a decision concerning approaching death or the death of loved ones, most people would hope for the least possible suffering. While a decision like this is extremely difficult to make, many people choose death as opposed to living in agony. However, others think that euthanasia is reprehensible no matter what the circumstances are. Author Cheryl Eckstein believes, "Killing in the name of compassion and mercy is wrong" ("Can there ever", par. 9). Homicide and suicide are generally not considered fair or sensible, but sometimes, however, they are carried out as acts of kindness and love. Thus, in certain situations, euthanasia may not be morally wrong. Eckstein states, "No person is entitled to have death inflicted upon him" ("Can There Ever", par. 11). However, if a person chooses death in order to prevent prolonged pain and misery, it is being self inflicted, and should not be denied in certain situations. People facing death should have a say in what happens to them. If a person is not physically or mentally able to make this decision, it seems most considerate that their loved ones should be able to aid in this process. If someone's remaining days are being spent in agony, shouldn't others attempt to fulfill their last wishes? On the other hand, Colleen McCullough says, "While there's life, there's hope" (Why I Oppose, par. 15). However, a drastically ailing being who is forced to keep living undesirably probably has limited hope. The hope they s... ...y final days include lying in a hospital bed with no hope for a physical recovery, I would like to be able to act on my own wishes, and not be forced to live any longer if my body is telling me that it cannot continue.    Works Cited Eckstein, Cheryl. "Can There Ever Be A 'Right To Be Killed'?" Citizen 25 July. 1995. http://www.awinc.com/partners/bc/commpass/lifenet/canthere.htm (27 Feb. 1997) McCullough, Colleen. "Why I Oppose Euthanasia." The Weekend Australian 16-17 Mar. 1996. http://www.ucaqld.com.au/trendz/3ethics/oppose.htm (27 Feb. 1997) Pankratz, Robert C., and Richard M. Welsh. "A Christian Response to Euthanasia." part 1. http://www. tkc.com/uturn/euthan.html (27 Feb. 1997) Pankratz, Robert C., and Richard M. Welsh. "A Christian Response to Euthanasia." part 2. http://www. tkc.com/uturn/ten/euthan2.html (27 Feb. 1997)      

Maligning Female Roles in Shakespeares Macbeth :: GCSE English Literature Coursework

Macbeth's Female Roles      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The female roles in William Shakespeare's Macbeth are those of the witches, more supernatural than human, Lady Macbeth and Lady Macduff, the latter being presented in a minor, almost insignificant way. This paper will explore the role of Lady Macbeth and only make slight comment on the witches.    Fanny Kemble in "Lady Macbeth" finds that the main female role could have ended in madness due to the evil tendencies of the lady:    Lady Macbeth, even in her sleep, has no qualms of conscience; her remorse takes none of the tenderer forms akin to repentance, nor the weaker ones allied to fear, from the pursuit of which the tortured soul, seeking where to hide itself, not seldom escapes into the boundless wilderness of madness. A very able article, published some years ago in the National Review, on the character of Lady Macbeth, insists much upon an opinion that she died of remorse, as some palliation of her crimes, and mitigation of our detestation of them. That she died of wickedness would be, I think, a juster verdict. Remorse is consciousness of guilt . . . and that I think Lady Macbeth never had; though the unrecognized pressure of her great guilt killed her. (116-17)    In "Memoranda: Remarks on the Character of Lady Macbeth," Sarah Siddons comments on how the feminine role of the leading lady is not a typical one as regards attitude:    [Macbeth] announces the King's approach; and she, insensible it should seem to all the perils which he has encountered in battle, and to all the happiness of his safe return to her, -- for not one kind word of greeting or congratulations does she offer, -- is so entirely swallowed up by the horrible design, which has probably been suggested to her by his letters, as to have forgotten both the one and the other. It is very remarkable that Macbeth is frequent in expressions of tenderness to his wife, while she never betrays one symptom of affection towards him, till, in the fiery furnace of affliction, her iron heart is melted down to softness. (56)    Clark and Wright in their Introduction to The Complete Works of William Shakespeare contradict the impression that the female protagonist is all strength:    Lady Macbeth is of a finer and more delicate nature. Having fixed her eye upon the end - the attainment for her husband of Duncan's crown - she accepts the inevitable means; she nerves herself for the terrible night's work by artificial stimulants; yet she cannot strike the sleeping king who resembles her father.

The Contributions of the Iroquois Essay -- Native Americans Indian Tri

The Contributions of the Iroquois The Native American Indian tribe called the Iroquois contributed greatly toward America. They have many stories about the world, and how things came to be the way they are. They have one story about the creation of the world. They use oral traditional elements in this story which is represented by nature. They also use a romantic aspect, which is represented by God’s and the super natural. In the beginning there were two worlds. The lower world, and the upper world. Everything existed in total darkness. The upper world was to hold mankind, and the lower world was where all of the monsters lived. A woman gave birth too twins. One twin was the good mind and the other was the evil mind. The good mind wanted to continue with creation, while the evil mind wanted the world to remain in it’s natural state of darkness. The good mind creates rivers, creeks, bushes, animals, and humans. This brings the oral traditional elements of their respect for nature. Mountains and valleys were created. The good mind kept destroying what ever he created for fear it was not perfect. Traces of animals from the beginning of time were left in the rocks known as fossils. The moon and the sun were created. Both the good and the evil mind attempted to create mankind. When the evil mind tries to create mankind he messes up and accidentally creates apes. When the evil mind is unable to create mankind as the good mind does, he becomes angry with him. The twin...

Economic environment of business assignment

Will biddeford's tram make a return?Question 1The central focus of this case is how Biddiford Tram Company, under the management of Mary Jo and Marty, can increase revenue and become profitable given the business constraints it must operate under, namely; (a) Loss of $0.15 subsidy per passenger from the State of Maine (b) Not increase the price of tram fare above $2.00 for two years and subsequently not above the rate of inflation. The railway tram would have to find a way to increase revenue to cover the loss of the $0.15 subsidy, provide a return on their investment while keeping the average fare at $2.00 during the season for two.Other notable business challenges to be addressed were; (a) The agreement the authorities had with the local trade union to keep manning levels high at Biddiford tram company. (b) Mary Jo and Marty had been instructed to charge all passengers including children, a flat fee such that children were not to be offered a discount on the fare. (c) A potential m arket in the local visitors who were very price-sensitive.QUESTION 2Option A – Shorten the season and concentrate on reducing cost (See Excelsheet OPTION A)If it was practicable, Option A would be a profitable route for Biddiford Tram Company to pursue. However, this option is not a viable one for the following reasons.1. There are businesses in Old Orchard Bay which depend on visitors at all times and not only at peak season because they are not seasonal businesses. Operating the Tram only at peak season would be detrimental to their business because they do depend as well on customers that come in the off-peak season.2. Shortening the season would displease the local trade union of the tram drivers because manning levels and therefore wages would be greatly affected by this. It would almost certainly lead to a dispute in the first two years and may hurt business moving forward.3. For the first two years at least, Biddiford Tram Company is still owned by the State of Maine a nd therefore a public service. It would be difficult to get approval from the authorities to shorten the season. The Trams and Old Orchard Bay are the community's top selling points. It won't work.QUESTION 3Option B – Use market power to increase passenger revenue across the seasonWhat Mary Jo means by having market power is that she understands that Biddiford Tram Company is a monopoly. A monopoly can either increase price or vary supply at a time but not both. Therefore, in this case, Biddiford Tram can increase its fare within the constraints it was given. The nature of a monopoly is such that the company is the only provider of that service and thus, it can segment its market. Hence, the off-peak fares for when mostly locals will use the tram service and peak fares for when mostly out-of-town visitors use it. This option allows Mary Jo to remain price-competitive and at the same time, gain as much of the market as possible.Year One and Year Two respectively (Option B)Tota l Cost (TC) = TVC + TFC Profit = Revenue – TCTFC = $330,528 Subsidy of $0.15 per passenger = (0.15 x 483336)TVC = VC + (0.15 x 483336) = 466353 + 72500 = $538,853Profit = $1,057,725 – ($330,528 + $538,853) = $188,344Year Three Total Cost (TC) = TVC + TFC Profit = Revenue – TCTFC = $330,528 Subsidy of $0.15 per passenger = (0.15 x 483336) TVC = VC + (0.15 x 483336) = 466353 + 72500 = $538,853Profit = $1,077,557 – ($330,528 + $538,853) = $208,176Year Four Total Cost (TC) = TVC + TFC Profit = Revenue – TCTFC = $330,528 Subsidy of $0.15 per passenger = (0.15 x 483336)TVC = VC + (0.15 x 483336) = 466353 + 72500 = $538,853Profit = $1,099,167 – ($330,528 + $538,853) = $229,786Option B will yield good returns for Biddiford Tram and make most of the season and market.

Gender /Sex Discrimination in the Work Place Essay

Thirty five years after civil rights act of 1964 was passed, female workers amounting to 80% are still doing the ‘women work. ’ Some as secretaries, others are sales clerks while others are support workers in the administrations. In the year 1993, only 19 women found themselves among the directors in the country and more than 500 boards had no female members. In 1999, the New York Times conducted a poll and found out that the biggest problem women were facing in America at that time was job discrimination. In the same year, working women were so much concerned about the wage gap between them and their male counterparts. Although the law came to prohibit these discriminations they continued even after (Mayor, 2010). This essay seeks to find out what the law is all about and who are covered in the law. It also seeks to differentiate between sexual and gender identity discriminations and sexual harassment based on some case studies. The federal law title VII, criminalizes any harassment or discrimination in the work place. It encompasses or covers all the employers in the private sector, state and local governments including education institutions which employ 15 workers and above (HR Hero, nd). Other groups that are covered by the law include; government agencies, political sub divisions, labor unions, associations, corporations, companies among others (US Equal Opportunity Commission, nd). The term employee as used in the act refers to a person who is involved in industrial activities that affect the commerce of the county and has more than 15 workers under him. It also refers to corporations that belong to the government or the Indian tribes and any department in the District of Columbia. The word also includes clubs that have private membership which do not pay tax as provided by the law. The term employment agency as used in the act refers to those persons who are involved in searching for employees on behalf of the employers either with or without compensation. Another group that is covered in the law is the labor organization. This refers to all those labor organizations which are affecting commerce in one way or another. This may also include the agents of these labor organizations and also committees that represent employees. Those groups which are involved or deal with grievances of the workers are also covered in the law (US Equal Opportunity Commission, nd). Apart from prohibiting discrimination in the work place based on sex, race, color, religion basis and national origin, it goes further to prohibit discriminations based on pregnancies, sexual stereotypes and sexual harassment against the employees. Currently, the law does not include discriminations based on sexual orientations but under the employment non –discrimination act, that kind of discrimination is covered. Many states have implemented this law and they have included more classes to be covered for example, marital status (HR Hero, nd). Civil rights act of 1964 has so many provisions in regards to employers and employees in the work place. Under section 2000e-2, the law declares that, it is unlawful for the employer to discriminate against any individual in regards to terms of payment, compensation package or privileges that the employment offers based on his /her race, gender, country of origin, color and religion. The law continues to say that any employer, who will be found imposing limitations to his workers, preventing them from accessing employment opportunities based on the above mentioned discrimination grounds, will be criminalized (Find US Law, 2008). Both employment agencies and labor organizations have also been put on notice by the law in that, when they fail to employ a person based on race, sex color among other factors, then they will also face the law. The term ‘based on sex’ here, refers to, based on pregnancy or medical conditions that are related to it and child birth. In the act, the law requires that all women affected by the above mentioned conditions, should be treated equally just like their male counter parts in regards to work related issues. This also applies to the benefits that they are supposed to be given. The condition that they are in should not limit them to enjoy their benefits just like other workers who are not in their condition. These provisions are included in section 2000e-2(h). This section does not allow the employer to pay for abortion benefits unless the life of the mother is in danger (US Equal Opportunity Commission, nd). Moreover, under this section it is considered unlawful when an employer comes up with standards of compensation or privileges and earning measuring system with an intention of discriminating employees based on the earlier mentioned factors. They are also forbidden to come up with ability tests whose results are intended to discriminate individuals. An employer is also not supposed to be biased when it comes to determining the amount of money he is going to pay his workers especially when based on sex. This can only be allowed when it has been provided for in the section 206(d) of the labor standard act of 1938, title 29 as amended (US Equal Opportunity Commission, nd). This law makes the employers responsible to prevent sexual harassment cases among their employees. They are supposed to take caution in regards to sexual harassment and correct any instance of it in the work place (Equal Rights Advocates, 2010). Differences between sexual discrimination, sexual harassment and gender identity discrimination Sexual Discrimination Sexual discrimination is mostly associated with the employers but if can also be committed by other employees. When this happens, the employer would be held responsible. There are two types of sexual discrimination; direct and indirect. The former refers to those situations where women at work place are treated with less favor than their male counter parts because of either their gender or marital status. Direct discrimination also comes in when treating a woman less favorably because she is pregnant or has gone for a maternity leave and this can extend even to pregnancy related illnesses. This mostly happens for example when a woman has gone for an interview and the interviewer only concentrates on the domestic circumstances of the interviewee (Thomson’s Solicitors, 2010). Another instance of discrimination based on gender comes in when a man who is less qualified than a woman is employed instead of her or when a man who is less experienced in the work place is promoted. Sometimes they are given excuses that those jobs are dirty ones and that there are no good toilet facilities for them. Sometimes, employers can be so cruel to the extent that, they can demote a woman because of her pregnancy or just immediately after maternity leave. In addition, sex discrimination comes in when a woman employee is not allowed to see clients or meet them for that matter and sometimes she cannot be invited to social events and instead a male colleague is chosen over her (Thomson’s Solicitors, 2010). Indirect discrimination refers to the adoption of some policies or practices in the places of work by employers. These policies are in one way or another disadvantageous to one gender than the other, even though they may appear on the surface to treat them equally. For example, an employer may require his employees to work full time and this disadvantages most women by barring them to take such a job. Some examples of this kind of discrimination include; some employers imposing age bars to their workers which can affect women negatively because most of them take time out to go to bring up children and thus these age bars will mean that, they will acquire their qualifications later than men (Thomson’s Solicitors, 2010). Some employers may also give their workers some benefits as a result of working for long in an institution and this will definitely not favor women who have decided to take time out to go and bring up children. Clauses related to mobility are also out to work against women in that, they may have difficulties when it comes to relocation because of their families and sometimes because of relying on their husbands as primary earners in the house. Some employers also go to the extent of requiring their workers to provide weight and height measurements and this will favor male workers more than their female counter parts. Lastly, those employers who require their employees to work in those hours which are unsocial may disadvantage women who have family commitments especially those who have children to care for (Thomson’s Solicitors, 2010). A case study related to this kind of discrimination involves a woman who had worked for a water transport business for some time but in her case, she was working in an office. Later, she decided to apply for a job in the same company but as a deck hand. In the process of application, she expressed her desire to acquire a captain’s license. She later complained that her male colleagues made her feel not welcome because they started to make such comments like how the job would be too dirty and heavy for her (Anti-Discrimination Commission, 2004). A time came when the business was facing some financial crisis and the company decided to do away with a particular service and this led to work hours for deck –hands to be reduced. As a result, the company shortened her water –time and this made her lose hours and opportunities in training and career. Her complaints to the company over the issue on how male counter parts were being favored in regards to time were futile. She sued them and as a result, she won the case and a compensation of $12,000. The company’s administration was directed to carry out anti-discrimination training among its workers (Anti-Discrimination Commission, 2004). This case study applies to discrimination among the workers themselves. Some companies also discriminate when it comes to offering services. In a case study, a woman wanted to be served by a certain company and in the process, she sought an appointment with the management for an in-home quote. The company’s representatives told her that it would be better if her husband was present for the quote. In her astonishment, she asked if the same procedures would apply on both of them regardless of who was present but they ignored her. The company gave some excuses regarding the matter stating that singles or widows were allowed to be accompanied by friends. The company was directed by a court to provide written apology to her and also to develop an anti-discrimination policy in the work place (Anti-Discrimination Commission, 2004). Sexual harassment When it comes to sexual harassment, it is perceived as a form of sexual discrimination. It can be defined legally as any unwelcome behavior or conduct that is of sexual nature and can be expressed through the word of mouth, physical means or even through the eyes; the conduct having severe consequences affecting the working environment in a negative way, making it be hostile. This means that any conduct that is welcome is not sexual harassment. Sexual harassment can be committed verbally or written by commenting on how somebody has dressed, on his or her behavior, somebody’s body structure, making jokes that are based on sex, asking somebody for sexual favors or for outings repeatedly. This may also include threatening a person or even spreading rumors about a person’s sexual life and also sexual innuendos (Equal Rights Advocates, 2010). Physical sexual harassment includes; assaulting a person, trying to block somebody’s movement, touching somebody inappropriately which may include kissing, patting, stroking and even hugging. One can harass an individual non- verbally by looking at a person’s body from up downwards, using derogative gestures towards a person, or even employing facial expressions that are of sexual nature (Equal Rights Advocates, 2010). Following a person comes under non -verbal sexual harassment. Visually, it can happen through drawings, pictures, emails, screen savers and posters that are of sexual nature. Some people may be harassed because they are females not males or the vice versa. This can also be considered as sexual harassment of non- sexual conduct. For example, if a lady carpenter works among male colleagues and she always finds her tools hidden, this can be considered a sexual harassment. The only condition that must exist for a conduct to be considered a sexual harassment is when the conduct is severe or pervasive (Equal Rights Advocates, 2010). If one is fired, demoted or the employer refuses to promote one because of rejecting sexual advances, that is automatically becomes sexual harassment. Even if it may not lead to injury or job status changing, so long as it interferes with ones performance at work place or even creating a hostile environment; that can be considered as a sexual harassment (Equal Rights Advocates, 2010). A case referred to as Meritor Savings Bank V. Vinson is one of the best cases on sexual harassment. The Supreme Court held that if a relationship is not welcome, it is considered to be ‘involuntary. ’ A plaintiff who was a lady sued her supervisor. During her first year working in the bank, she entered a relationship with him unwillingly because she feared losing her job (TWC Home, nd). She knew that she would face it rough the moment she refuses the advances. So she continued with the relationship for two years. The man would fondle her in the sight of other workers, sometimes follow her to the rest room and even go to the extent of exposing himself to her. For her, she did not expose his conduct to the management due to insecurity. The plaintiff proved that the relationship was unwelcome and it created a working environment which was abusive. The Supreme Court heard this and ruled in favor of her. The accused had to pay for the damages to the plaintiff (TWC Home, nd). Gender Identity Discrimination Gender identity refers to a situation of self identification either as a female or a male regardless of the anatomical sex at the time of birth. In normal circumstances, gender identity goes hand in hand with anatomical sex. A person identifies with females because she has physical features of females and a male does the same because he has male physical features. However, this does not apply to all human beings because for some, their identity does not match with their physical feature and this applies mostly to transsexual people (Work Place Fairness, 2009). A female may have the stronger side of males and a male may have stronger characteristics of females. Society may view the situation very differently. For example a man who identifies himself as a woman can be said to be feminine and a woman who identifies herself as a male is considered masculine. ‘Transgender’ is used to refer to a person whose stereotypes of gender identity do not apply. This term refers to cross dressers; both male and female, impersonators from both genders, individuals who are inter sexed, transsexuals, males who are feminine and females who are considered masculine (Work Place Fairness, 2009). These people usually face a lot of discrimination especially at work place. Mostly, they are usually fired the moment the management learns of their plans to undergo surgery on sexual reassignment. Some of them live in fear of being fired especially those who engage in cross dressing outside their work places. Those who try to wear appropriate clothes that match their gender identity are usually punished or fired all together for not conforming to the company’s policy of dress code. This happens especially in those companies that do not recognize individuals who are trans-gendered. Some employers even go to an extent of prohibiting these trans-gendered people to visit the rest rooms and are sometimes harassed by co workers on that basis (Work Place Fairness, 2009). This discrimination is not prohibited by the law particularly the federal one. How ever, efforts are being made to pass a law that will make this kind of discrimination illegal. Some have argued that, it can be covered with the law that bans all kinds of discrimination in the work place. Supreme Court has allowed these discrimination cases to be treated as harassment but is not clear how a court should handle such a case (Work place fairness, 2009). In conclusion, many people do not differentiate between the three kinds of discrimination making it hard to press charges regarding the matter. Some may have been discriminated without their knowledge and thus it is high time, companies adopt anti discrimination policies to make every one aware of his or her rights at the work place. References Anti-Discrimination Commission of Queensland. (2004). Sex discrimination case studies. Retrieved from http://www. adcq. qld. gov. au/Cases/Sex. htm Equal right advocates. (2010). Know your rights: Sexual harassment at work. Retrieved from http://www. equalrights. org/publications/kyr/shwork. asp Fine US Law. (2008). Civil rights act of 1964-cra-title vii-equal employment opportunities 42 US code chapter 21. Retrieved from http://finduslaw. com/civil_rights_act_of_1964_cra_title_vii_equal_employment_opportunities_42_us_code_chapter_21 HR Hero. (nd). Title VII of the civil rights of 1964-title VII. Retrieved from http://www. hrhero. com/topics/title7. html Thomson’s solicitors. (2010). Summary of the law on sex discrimination. Retrieved from http://www. thompsons. law. co. uk/ltext/l0840001. htm TWC Home. (nd). Case studies on sexual harassment. Retrieved from http://www. twc. state. tx. us/news/efte/case_studies_in_sexual_harassment. html US Equal Opportunity Commission. (nd). Title VII of the civil rights of 1964. Retrieved from http://www. eeoc. gov/laws/statutes/titlevii. cfm Work Place Fairness. (2009). Gender Identity discrimination. Retrieved from http://www. workplacefairness. org/genderid? agree=yes#1

The Tramp

NO PLACE FOR A WOMAN The Australian author Barbara Baynton had her first short story published under the title â€Å"The Tramp† in 1896 in the Christmas edition of the Bulletin. Founded in Sydney in 1880, the Bulletin was instrumental in developing the idea of Australian nationalism. It was originally a popular commercial weekly rather than a literary magazine but in the 1890s, with the literary critic A. G. Stephens as its editor, it was to become â€Å"something like a national literary club for a new generation of writers† (Carter 263).Stephens published work by many young Australian writers, including the short story writer Henry Lawson and the poet â€Å"Banjo† Paterson and in 1901 he celebrated Miles Franklin’s My Brilliant Career as the first Australian novel. 2 †¦ Stephens deemed her â€Å"too outspoken for an Australian audience† (Schaffer 154). She was unable to find a publisher in Sydney willing to print her stories as a collection a nd it was not until 1902 that six of her stories were published in London by Duckworth’s Greenback Library under the title Bush Studies. It was, on the whole, reviewed favorably.She subsequently published a novel, Human Toll, in 1907 and an expanded collection of stories in 1917. Yet, although individual stories were regularly included in anthologies of Australian literature, by the time of her death in 1929 she was better known as an antique collector and her collected stories were not reprinted until 1980. 3 Until the advent of feminist criticism in the 1980s, Baynton remained a largely forgotten figure, dismissed as a typical female writer who did not know how to control her emotions and who was unable to put her â€Å"natural talent† to good use.As late as 1983 Lucy Frost could talk of â€Å"her unusually low level of critical awareness† (65) and claim that she â€Å"relies †¦ on instinct †¦ In order to write well she needs to write honestly out o f intuitive understanding. †¦ As art it makes for failure† (65). For a long time reading the implicit in Baynton’s stories consisted in identifying the autobiographical elements and attempting to piece together her true life. She notoriously claimed, even to her own children, to be the daughter not of an Irish carpenter but of a Bengal Lancer and in later life tried to conceal he hardship of her childhood and early married life. The stories were read as â€Å"true† accounts of what it was like for a poor woman to live in the bush at the end of the nineteenth century. This paper argues that far from being a natural writer whose â€Å"talent does not extend to symbolism† (Frost 64), Baynton is a sophisticated writer who uses obliqueness simply because this was the only form of criticism open to a woman writer in Australia at this time. The apparent inability of readers to engage with the implicit in her stories stems from an unwillingness to accept her vision of life in the bush. In order to understand Baynton's technique and why earlier readers consistently failed to interpret it correctly, it is important to replace her stories in the context of the literary world in which she was working for, as Brown and Yule state, when it comes to reading the implicit: â€Å"Discourse is interpreted in the light of past experience of similar discourse by analogy with previous similar texts† (65). In 1901, the year of federation and the height of Australian nationalistic fervor, A. G.Stephens wrote: What country can offer to writers better material than Australia? We are not yet snug in cities and hamlets, molded by routine, regimented to a pattern. Every man who roams the Australian wilderness is a potential knight of Romance; every man who grapples with the Australian desert for a livelihood might sing a Homeric chant of history, or listen, baffled and beaten, to an Aeschylean dirge of defeat. The marvels of the adventurous are our d aily common-places.The drama of the conflict between Man and Destiny is played here in a scenic setting whose novelty is full of vital suggestion for the literary artist. (Ackland, 77) 5 Women are conspicuously absent in this description of Australian life as they are in the work of Henry Lawson whose stories have come to be seen as the ‘perfect’ example of nationalistic writing. In the titles of his stories women, if they exist at all, are seen as appendages of men: â€Å"The Drover’s Wife,† â€Å"The Selector’s Daughter. They are defined at best by their physical characteristics: â€Å"That Pretty Girl in the Army,† but more often than not are specifically excluded: â€Å"No Place for a Woman† or reduced to silence: â€Å"She Wouldn’t Speak. † In the texts themselves the narrators are either anonymous or male and male mate-ship is valued above marriage. In Lawson's most well-known stories the bush is a destructive forc e against which man must wage a constant battle. The landscape, perhaps predictably, is depicted in feminine terms either as a cruel mother who threatens to destroy her son or as a dangerous virgin who leads man into deadly temptation.Men survive by rallying together and are always ready to help a â€Å"mate† in distress. Women are left at home and are shown to be contented with their role as homemaker: â€Å"All days are much the same to her †¦ But this bush-woman is used to the loneliness of it †¦ She is glad when her husband returns, but she does not gush or make a fuss about it. She gets him something good to eat, and tidies up the children† (Lawson 6). Baynton's stories challenge this vision of life in the bush in a number of ways: the majority of her protagonists are female; the real danger comes not from the bush but from the men who inhabit it. From the very beginning, Baynton’s stories were subject to a form of male censorship since Stephens h eavily edited them in an attempt to render the implicit conventional and thereby make the stories conform to his vision of Australian life. Few manuscripts have survived but the changes made to two stories have been well documented. In 1984 Elizabeth Webby published an article comparing the published version of â€Å"Squeaker’s Mate† with a typescript/manuscript held in the Mitchell Library.She noted that in the published version the structure has been tightened and some ambiguity removed by replacing many of the pronouns by nouns. More importantly, the ending has been changed and, since endings play such a crucial role in the understanding of a short story, this has important repercussions on the whole text: The new, more conventionally moralistic ending demanded a more actively brutal Squeaker and a more passive, suffering Mary. So traditional male/female characteristics were superimposed on Baynton’s original characters, characters designed to question such s exual stereotypes.As well, the main emphasis was shifted from its ostensible object Squeaker’s mate, to her attacker and defender; instead of a study of a reversal of sex, we have a tale of true or false mateship. (459) 7 Despite these changes the text's conformity to the traditional Australian story of mate-ship which the Bulletin readers had come to expect remains superficial. The title itself is an ironic parody of Lawson's story titles. The woman is defined by her relationship to the man but the roles are reversed. The man has become the effeminate â€Å"Squeaker,† the woman the masculine â€Å"mate. As in Lawson's stories the male character's words are reported in passages of direct speech and the reader has access to his thoughts while the woman's words are reported only indirectly: â€Å"†¦ waiting for her to be up and about again. That would be soon, she told her complaining mate† (16). However, and this is an important difference with Lawson's sto ries, in Baynton's work the text deliberately draws attention to what is not said. For example when Squeaker leaves her without food and drink for two days: â€Å"Of them [the sheep] and the dog only she spoke when he returned† (16), or again: â€Å"No word of complaint passed her lips† (18).By the end of the story the woman has stopped speaking altogether and the reader is deliberately denied all access to her thoughts and feelings: â€Å"What the sick woman thought was not definite for she kept silent always† (20). The main character is thus marginalised both in the title and in the story itself. The story is constructed around her absence and it is precisely what is not said which draws attention to the hardships of the woman's life. 8 A similar technique is used in â€Å"Billy Skywonkie. The protagonist, who remains unnamed throughout the story, is not even mentioned until the fourth paragraph where she is described as â€Å"the listening woman passengerâ €  (46). She is thus from the start designated as external to the action. Although there is a lot of dialogue in direct speech in the story, the protagonist’s own words are always reported indirectly. The reader is never allowed direct access to her thoughts but must infer what is going on in her mind from expressions like â€Å"in nervous fear† (47) or â€Å"with the fascination of horror† (53).Despite the awfulness of the male characters, the decentering of the protagonist makes it possible for readers unwilling to accept Baynton’s views on life in the bush to accept the explicitly stated opinions of the male characters and to dismiss the woman as an unwelcome outsider. 9 The most significant changes to the original stories, and those about which Baynton apparently felt most strongly since she removed them from the text of Bush Studies, concern the story now known as â€Å"The Chosen Vessel. † This story, as many critics have remarked, is a ve rsion of â€Å"The Drover's Wife† in which the â€Å"gallows-faced swagman† (Lawson 6) does not leave.Lawson's text states repeatedly that the wife is â€Å"used to† the loneliness of her life, suggesting even that it is easier for her than for him: â€Å"They are used to being apart, or at least she is† (4). Baynton's character, on the other hand, dislikes being alone and the story shows the extreme vulnerability of women, not at the hands of Nature, but at the hands of men. 10 Baynton originally submitted the story under the title â€Å"When the Curlew Cried† but Stephens changed this to â€Å"The Tramp. † Once again his editorial changes deflect the reader’s attention away from the female character.By implicitly making the man rather than the woman the central figure, the rape and murder are reduced to one ‘episode’ in the tramp’s life. Kay Schaffer underlines (156) that this attempt to remove the woman from the story is also to be found in the work of the critic A. A. Phillips. For many years he was the only person to have written on Baynton and his article contains the preposterous sentence that her major theme is â€Å"the image of a lonely bush hut besieged by a terrifying figure who is also a terrified figure† (150).As Schaffer rightly points out, it is difficult to understand how any reader can possibly consider that the man who is contemplating rape and murder is a â€Å"terrified figure. † 11 As was then the convention, both the rape and murder are implicit: She knew that he was offering terms if she ceased to struggle and cry for help, though louder and louder did she cry for it, but it was only when the man’s hand gripped her throat that the cry of â€Å"Murder† came from her lips. And when she ceased, the startled curlews took up the awful sound, and flew wailing â€Å"Murder! Murder! over the horseman’s head (85). 12 Stephen’s delibera te suppression of two passages, however, means the reader can infer a very different meaning to events than that intended by Baynton. The Bulletin version omits the scene in which Peter Henessey explains how he mistakenly thought the figure of the woman shouting for help was a vision of the Virgin Mary. The only possible reading in this version is that the horseman was riding too fast and simply did not hear her calls: â€Å"She called to him in Christ’s Name, in her babe’s name †¦ But the distance grew greater and greater between them† (85).Baynton’s original version leads to a very different interpretation: ‘Mary! Mother of Christ! ’ He repeated the invocation half unconsciously, when suddenly to him, out of the stillness, came Christ’s Name – called loudly in despairing accents †¦ Gliding across a ghostly patch of pipe-clay, he saw a white-robed figure with a babe clasped to her bosom. †¦ The moonlight on the g leaming clay was a ‘heavenly light’ to him, and he knew the white figure not for flesh and blood, but for the Virgin and Child of his mother’s prayers.Then, good Catholic that once more he was, he put spurs to his horse’s sides and galloped madly away (86-7). 13 By clarifying what is going on in the horseman’s mind, Baynton is implying that patriarchal society as a whole is guilty. This interpretation is confirmed by the fact that the woman does not exist as a person in her own right in the eyes of any of the male characters. Her husband denies her sexual identity: â€Å"Needn’t flatter yerself †¦ nobody ‘ud want ter run away with yew† (82); the swagman sees her as a sexual object, Peter Henessey as a religious one.Taken individually there is nothing original in these visions of woman but their accumulation is surprising and ought to lead the reader to consider what place is left for a woman as a person. 14 Stephen's second omission is a paragraph near the beginning of the story where the reader is told: â€Å"She was not afraid of horsemen, but swagmen† (81). This sentence is perhaps one of the best examples of the way the implicit works in Baynton's stories. The presupposition, at the time widely accepted, is that horsemen and swagmen are different.Explicitly asserting the contrary would have been immediately challenged and Baynton never takes this risk. Only with the story's denouement does the reader become aware that the presupposition is false, that both horsemen and swagmen are to be feared. 15 The other technique frequently used by Baynton is that of metaphor and metonymy. According to Catherine Kerbrat-Orecchioni: â€Å"le trope n'est qu'un cas particulier du fonctionnement de l'implicite. †¦ Tout trope est une deviance et se caracterise par un mecanisme de substitution – mais substitution de quoi a quoi, et deviance de quoi par rapport a quoi† (94;109).Readers of Bus h Studies have all too often identified only the substitution, not the deviance. 16 In her detailed analysis of â€Å"The Chosen Vessel† Kay Schaffer examines the significance of the last paragraph of the story in which the swagman tries to wash the sheep’s blood from his dog’s mouth and throat. She is particularly interested in the last sentence â€Å"But the dog also was guilty† (88). Most readers have seen this as a simple, almost superfluous statement, whose only aim is to underline the parallel between man and dog: the man killed a woman, the dog a sheep.Schaffer on the other hand sees here a reference to the first paragraph: â€Å"but the woman’s husband was angry and called her – the noun was cur† (Baynton 81). She analyses the metonymic association of woman and dog and argues that the woman’s dog-like loyalty to a husband who abuses her is open to criticism since as a human being she is capable of making decisions for h erself. According to Schaffer's reading: â€Å"Her massive acceptance of the situation makes her an accomplice in her fate† (165). 17Most readers do identify the woman’s metaphoric association with the cow as a symbol of the maternal instinct but Schaffer again goes one step further and argues that since the woman is afraid of the cow she is consequently afraid of the maternal in herself but in participating, albeit reluctantly, in control of the cow, her husband’s property, she also participates in maintaining patriarchal society and therefore: â€Å"Although never made explicit in the text, by metonymic links and metaphoric referents, the woman paradoxically is what she fears.She embodies ‘the maternal’ in the symbolic order. She belongs to the same economy which brings about her murder† (165). 18 The baby is rescued by a boundary rider, but this does not mean that motherhood emerges as a positive force in the story. Baynton’s title â€Å"The Chosen Vessel† implies that the abstract concept of the maternal can exist only at the cost of the woman by denying the mother the right to exist as a person: The Virgin Mary exists only to provide God with his Son, a wife is there to ensure the transmission of power and property from father to son.At the end of Baynton’s story even this reverenced position is denied women: â€Å"Once more the face of the Madonna and Child looked down on [Peter] †¦ ‘My Lord and my God! ’ was the exaltation ‘And hast Thou chosen me? ’ Ultimately Schaffer argues: If one reads through the contradictions, woman is not guilty at all – she is wholly absent. She takes no part in the actions of the story except to represent male desire as either Virgin or whore †¦ She has been named, captured, controlled, appropriated, violated, raped and murdered, and then reverenced through the signifying practices of the text.And these contradictory prac tices through which the ‘woman' is dispersed in the text are possible by her very absence from the symbolic order except by reference to her phallic repossession by Man. (168) 19 In a similar way Baynton's use of sheep as a metonym for women and passive suffering is often remarked upon but is seen as little more than a cliche.This view is justified by referring to â€Å"Squeaker’s Mate† where the woman is powerless to stop Squeaker selling her sheep, many of which she considers as pets, to the butcher and to â€Å"Billy Skywonkie† which ends with an apparently stereotypical image prefiguring the â€Å"meaningless sacrifice† (Krimmer and Lawson xxii) of the woman in â€Å"The Chosen Vessel†: â€Å"She noticed that the sheep lay passive, with its head back till its neck curved in a bow, and that the glitter of the knife was reflected in its eye† (Baynton 60).Hergenhan does go slightly further by arguing that this is also an example of Ba ynton’s denial of the redemptive power of the sacrificial animal (216) but when the collection as a whole is considered, and the different references are read in parallel, the metonym turns out to be far more ambiguous. 20 In â€Å"Scrammy ‘And† the knife is clearly not a dangerous instrument: â€Å"The only weapon that the old fellow had was the useless butcher’s knife† (41, my italics). Even more significantly in this story the reflection of the moonlight in the sheep’s eyes is sufficient to temporarily discourageScrammy: â€Å"The way those thousand eyes reflected the rising moon was disconcerting. The whole of the night seemed pregnant with eyes† (38). Far from being â€Å"innocent† creatures the sheep are associated with convicts: â€Å"The moonlight’s undulating white scales across their shorn backs brought out the fresh tar brand 8, setting him thinking of the links of that convict gang chain long ago† (42). Nor are sheep seen to be entirely passive: â€Å"She was wiser now, though sheep are slow to learn† (44). 21 In this respect the symbolism of the ewe and the poddy lamb is particularly interesting.The old man claims that this is the third lamb that he has had to poddy. He accuses the ewe of not being â€Å"nat’ral† (34), and having a â€Å"blarsted imperdence† (30). The narrator, on the other hand, describes her as â€Å"the unashamed silent mother† (30). What is being challenged is not her motherhood but her apparent lack of maternal instinct. Once the shepherd is dead, the ewe is capable of teaching her lamb to drink suggesting that it is in fact the man who prevents the maternal from developing. This would seem to be confirmed by the repeated remark that men insist on cows and calves being penned separately.Thus apparently hackneyed images are in fact used in a deviant way so as to undermine traditional bush values. 22 In much the same way, Bay nton’s cliches also deviate from expected usage. For example in â€Å"Scrammy ‘And† the old shepherd sums up his view of women as: â€Å"They can’t never do anythin’ right, an’ orlways, continerally they gets a man inter trouble (30). † By inverting the roles of men and women in the expression â€Å"getting into trouble† the text suggests that values in the Bush are radically different to elsewhere. Something which is confirmed in â€Å"Billy Skywonkie† where the narrator reflects: â€Å"She felt she had lost her mental balance.Little matters became distorted and the greater shrivelled† (55). 23 Similarly the apparently stereotypical descriptions of the landscape in fact undermine the Bulletin vision of Australia. In â€Å"Billy Skywonkie† the countryside is described as â€Å"barren shelterless plains† (47). Were the description to stop here it could be interpreted as a typical male image of the land as dangerous female but the text continues; the land is barren because of â€Å"the tireless greedy sun† (47). In the traditional dichotomy man/woman; active/passive the sun is always masculine and like the sun the men in Bush Studies are shown to be greedy.Although never explicitly stated, this seems to suggest that it is not the land itself which is hostile but the activities of men which make it so. Schaffer sees a confirmation of this (152) in the fact that it is the Konk’s nose which for the protagonist â€Å"blotted the landscape and dwarfed all perspective† (Baynton 50). In Baynton’s work women are associated with the land because both are victims of men. 24 The least understood story in the collection is undoubtedly â€Å"Bush Church†: Krimmer and Lawson talk of its â€Å"grim meaninglessness† (xxii) and Phillips complains that it is â€Å"almost without plot† (155).It is perhaps not surprising that this story should be the m ost complex in its use of language. Of all the stories in the collection â€Å"Bush Church† is the one which contains the most direct speech, written in an unfamiliar colloquial Australian English. These passages deliberately flout what Grice describes as the maxims of relevance and manner – they seem neither to advance the plot nor to add to the reader's understanding of the characters. 25 Most readers are thrown by this failure to respect conversational maxims and the co-operative principal. Consequently they pay insufficient attention to individual sentences.Moreover, the sentences are structured in such a way as to make it difficult for the reader to question their ‘truth’ or even to locate their subversive nature. As Jean Jacques Weber points out, the natural tendency is to challenge what the sentence asserts rather than what it presupposes (164). This is clearly illustrated by the opening sentence: â€Å"The hospitality of the bush never extends to the loan of a good horse to an inexperienced rider† (61). Readers may object that they know of occasions when a good horse was loaned to an inexperienced rider but few realise that the assertion in fact negates the presupposition.Baynton is not talking here about the loan of a horse but is challenging one of the fundamental myths of life in the bush – that there is such a thing as bush hospitality. 26 Once again a comparison with Lawson is illuminating. Lawson's anonymous narrator says of the Drover's wife: â€Å"She seems contented with her lot† (6). In â€Å"Bush Church† this becomes: â€Å"But for all this Liz thought she was fairly happy† (70). Although semantically their meaning is similar, pragmatically they could not be more different.It is not the anonymous narrator but Liz who is uncertain of her feelings and feels it necessary to qualify â€Å"happy† by â€Å"fairly. † More importantly the presupposition, â€Å"but for all t his,† deliberately leaves unsaid the extreme poverty and the beatings to which Liz is subject. 27 Susan Sheridan, talking of Baynton’s novel Human Toll, says: â€Å"the assumption that it is autobiographical deflects attention from the novel’s textuality as if the assertion that it was all ‘true’ and that writing was a necessary catharsis could account for its strangely wrought prose and obscure dynamics of desire† (67).The same is true of her short stories. By persisting in reading her as a â€Å"realist† writer many readers fail to notice her sophisticated use of language. Perhaps because none of the stories has a narrator to guide the reader in their interpretation or because the reader has little or no direct access to the protagonist’s thoughts, or because of the flouting of conversational maxims and the co-operative principal, sentences are taken at face value and all too often little attempt is made to decode the irony or to question what on the surface appears to be statements of fact.Hergenhan queries the success of a strategy of such extreme obliqueness: â€Å"It is difficult to understand why Baynton did not make it clearer as the ellipsis is carried so far that the clues have eluded most readers† (217), but it should be remembered that, given the circumstances in which she was trying to publish, direct criticism was never an option for Baynton. What is essential in decoding Baynton’s work is to accept that it is not about women but about the absence of women who are shown to be victims both of men in the bush and of language. The Tramp NO PLACE FOR A WOMAN The Australian author Barbara Baynton had her first short story published under the title â€Å"The Tramp† in 1896 in the Christmas edition of the Bulletin. Founded in Sydney in 1880, the Bulletin was instrumental in developing the idea of Australian nationalism. It was originally a popular commercial weekly rather than a literary magazine but in the 1890s, with the literary critic A. G. Stephens as its editor, it was to become â€Å"something like a national literary club for a new generation of writers† (Carter 263).Stephens published work by many young Australian writers, including the short story writer Henry Lawson and the poet â€Å"Banjo† Paterson and in 1901 he celebrated Miles Franklin’s My Brilliant Career as the first Australian novel. 2 †¦ Stephens deemed her â€Å"too outspoken for an Australian audience† (Schaffer 154). She was unable to find a publisher in Sydney willing to print her stories as a collection a nd it was not until 1902 that six of her stories were published in London by Duckworth’s Greenback Library under the title Bush Studies. It was, on the whole, reviewed favorably.She subsequently published a novel, Human Toll, in 1907 and an expanded collection of stories in 1917. Yet, although individual stories were regularly included in anthologies of Australian literature, by the time of her death in 1929 she was better known as an antique collector and her collected stories were not reprinted until 1980. 3 Until the advent of feminist criticism in the 1980s, Baynton remained a largely forgotten figure, dismissed as a typical female writer who did not know how to control her emotions and who was unable to put her â€Å"natural talent† to good use.As late as 1983 Lucy Frost could talk of â€Å"her unusually low level of critical awareness† (65) and claim that she â€Å"relies †¦ on instinct †¦ In order to write well she needs to write honestly out o f intuitive understanding. †¦ As art it makes for failure† (65). For a long time reading the implicit in Baynton’s stories consisted in identifying the autobiographical elements and attempting to piece together her true life. She notoriously claimed, even to her own children, to be the daughter not of an Irish carpenter but of a Bengal Lancer and in later life tried to conceal he hardship of her childhood and early married life. The stories were read as â€Å"true† accounts of what it was like for a poor woman to live in the bush at the end of the nineteenth century. This paper argues that far from being a natural writer whose â€Å"talent does not extend to symbolism† (Frost 64), Baynton is a sophisticated writer who uses obliqueness simply because this was the only form of criticism open to a woman writer in Australia at this time. The apparent inability of readers to engage with the implicit in her stories stems from an unwillingness to accept her vision of life in the bush. In order to understand Baynton's technique and why earlier readers consistently failed to interpret it correctly, it is important to replace her stories in the context of the literary world in which she was working for, as Brown and Yule state, when it comes to reading the implicit: â€Å"Discourse is interpreted in the light of past experience of similar discourse by analogy with previous similar texts† (65). In 1901, the year of federation and the height of Australian nationalistic fervor, A. G.Stephens wrote: What country can offer to writers better material than Australia? We are not yet snug in cities and hamlets, molded by routine, regimented to a pattern. Every man who roams the Australian wilderness is a potential knight of Romance; every man who grapples with the Australian desert for a livelihood might sing a Homeric chant of history, or listen, baffled and beaten, to an Aeschylean dirge of defeat. The marvels of the adventurous are our d aily common-places.The drama of the conflict between Man and Destiny is played here in a scenic setting whose novelty is full of vital suggestion for the literary artist. (Ackland, 77) 5 Women are conspicuously absent in this description of Australian life as they are in the work of Henry Lawson whose stories have come to be seen as the ‘perfect’ example of nationalistic writing. In the titles of his stories women, if they exist at all, are seen as appendages of men: â€Å"The Drover’s Wife,† â€Å"The Selector’s Daughter. They are defined at best by their physical characteristics: â€Å"That Pretty Girl in the Army,† but more often than not are specifically excluded: â€Å"No Place for a Woman† or reduced to silence: â€Å"She Wouldn’t Speak. † In the texts themselves the narrators are either anonymous or male and male mate-ship is valued above marriage. In Lawson's most well-known stories the bush is a destructive forc e against which man must wage a constant battle. The landscape, perhaps predictably, is depicted in feminine terms either as a cruel mother who threatens to destroy her son or as a dangerous virgin who leads man into deadly temptation.Men survive by rallying together and are always ready to help a â€Å"mate† in distress. Women are left at home and are shown to be contented with their role as homemaker: â€Å"All days are much the same to her †¦ But this bush-woman is used to the loneliness of it †¦ She is glad when her husband returns, but she does not gush or make a fuss about it. She gets him something good to eat, and tidies up the children† (Lawson 6). Baynton's stories challenge this vision of life in the bush in a number of ways: the majority of her protagonists are female; the real danger comes not from the bush but from the men who inhabit it. From the very beginning, Baynton’s stories were subject to a form of male censorship since Stephens h eavily edited them in an attempt to render the implicit conventional and thereby make the stories conform to his vision of Australian life. Few manuscripts have survived but the changes made to two stories have been well documented. In 1984 Elizabeth Webby published an article comparing the published version of â€Å"Squeaker’s Mate† with a typescript/manuscript held in the Mitchell Library.She noted that in the published version the structure has been tightened and some ambiguity removed by replacing many of the pronouns by nouns. More importantly, the ending has been changed and, since endings play such a crucial role in the understanding of a short story, this has important repercussions on the whole text: The new, more conventionally moralistic ending demanded a more actively brutal Squeaker and a more passive, suffering Mary. So traditional male/female characteristics were superimposed on Baynton’s original characters, characters designed to question such s exual stereotypes.As well, the main emphasis was shifted from its ostensible object Squeaker’s mate, to her attacker and defender; instead of a study of a reversal of sex, we have a tale of true or false mateship. (459) 7 Despite these changes the text's conformity to the traditional Australian story of mate-ship which the Bulletin readers had come to expect remains superficial. The title itself is an ironic parody of Lawson's story titles. The woman is defined by her relationship to the man but the roles are reversed. The man has become the effeminate â€Å"Squeaker,† the woman the masculine â€Å"mate. As in Lawson's stories the male character's words are reported in passages of direct speech and the reader has access to his thoughts while the woman's words are reported only indirectly: â€Å"†¦ waiting for her to be up and about again. That would be soon, she told her complaining mate† (16). However, and this is an important difference with Lawson's sto ries, in Baynton's work the text deliberately draws attention to what is not said. For example when Squeaker leaves her without food and drink for two days: â€Å"Of them [the sheep] and the dog only she spoke when he returned† (16), or again: â€Å"No word of complaint passed her lips† (18).By the end of the story the woman has stopped speaking altogether and the reader is deliberately denied all access to her thoughts and feelings: â€Å"What the sick woman thought was not definite for she kept silent always† (20). The main character is thus marginalised both in the title and in the story itself. The story is constructed around her absence and it is precisely what is not said which draws attention to the hardships of the woman's life. 8 A similar technique is used in â€Å"Billy Skywonkie. The protagonist, who remains unnamed throughout the story, is not even mentioned until the fourth paragraph where she is described as â€Å"the listening woman passengerâ €  (46). She is thus from the start designated as external to the action. Although there is a lot of dialogue in direct speech in the story, the protagonist’s own words are always reported indirectly. The reader is never allowed direct access to her thoughts but must infer what is going on in her mind from expressions like â€Å"in nervous fear† (47) or â€Å"with the fascination of horror† (53).Despite the awfulness of the male characters, the decentering of the protagonist makes it possible for readers unwilling to accept Baynton’s views on life in the bush to accept the explicitly stated opinions of the male characters and to dismiss the woman as an unwelcome outsider. 9 The most significant changes to the original stories, and those about which Baynton apparently felt most strongly since she removed them from the text of Bush Studies, concern the story now known as â€Å"The Chosen Vessel. † This story, as many critics have remarked, is a ve rsion of â€Å"The Drover's Wife† in which the â€Å"gallows-faced swagman† (Lawson 6) does not leave.Lawson's text states repeatedly that the wife is â€Å"used to† the loneliness of her life, suggesting even that it is easier for her than for him: â€Å"They are used to being apart, or at least she is† (4). Baynton's character, on the other hand, dislikes being alone and the story shows the extreme vulnerability of women, not at the hands of Nature, but at the hands of men. 10 Baynton originally submitted the story under the title â€Å"When the Curlew Cried† but Stephens changed this to â€Å"The Tramp. † Once again his editorial changes deflect the reader’s attention away from the female character.By implicitly making the man rather than the woman the central figure, the rape and murder are reduced to one ‘episode’ in the tramp’s life. Kay Schaffer underlines (156) that this attempt to remove the woman from the story is also to be found in the work of the critic A. A. Phillips. For many years he was the only person to have written on Baynton and his article contains the preposterous sentence that her major theme is â€Å"the image of a lonely bush hut besieged by a terrifying figure who is also a terrified figure† (150).As Schaffer rightly points out, it is difficult to understand how any reader can possibly consider that the man who is contemplating rape and murder is a â€Å"terrified figure. † 11 As was then the convention, both the rape and murder are implicit: She knew that he was offering terms if she ceased to struggle and cry for help, though louder and louder did she cry for it, but it was only when the man’s hand gripped her throat that the cry of â€Å"Murder† came from her lips. And when she ceased, the startled curlews took up the awful sound, and flew wailing â€Å"Murder! Murder! over the horseman’s head (85). 12 Stephen’s delibera te suppression of two passages, however, means the reader can infer a very different meaning to events than that intended by Baynton. The Bulletin version omits the scene in which Peter Henessey explains how he mistakenly thought the figure of the woman shouting for help was a vision of the Virgin Mary. The only possible reading in this version is that the horseman was riding too fast and simply did not hear her calls: â€Å"She called to him in Christ’s Name, in her babe’s name †¦ But the distance grew greater and greater between them† (85).Baynton’s original version leads to a very different interpretation: ‘Mary! Mother of Christ! ’ He repeated the invocation half unconsciously, when suddenly to him, out of the stillness, came Christ’s Name – called loudly in despairing accents †¦ Gliding across a ghostly patch of pipe-clay, he saw a white-robed figure with a babe clasped to her bosom. †¦ The moonlight on the g leaming clay was a ‘heavenly light’ to him, and he knew the white figure not for flesh and blood, but for the Virgin and Child of his mother’s prayers.Then, good Catholic that once more he was, he put spurs to his horse’s sides and galloped madly away (86-7). 13 By clarifying what is going on in the horseman’s mind, Baynton is implying that patriarchal society as a whole is guilty. This interpretation is confirmed by the fact that the woman does not exist as a person in her own right in the eyes of any of the male characters. Her husband denies her sexual identity: â€Å"Needn’t flatter yerself †¦ nobody ‘ud want ter run away with yew† (82); the swagman sees her as a sexual object, Peter Henessey as a religious one.Taken individually there is nothing original in these visions of woman but their accumulation is surprising and ought to lead the reader to consider what place is left for a woman as a person. 14 Stephen's second omission is a paragraph near the beginning of the story where the reader is told: â€Å"She was not afraid of horsemen, but swagmen† (81). This sentence is perhaps one of the best examples of the way the implicit works in Baynton's stories. The presupposition, at the time widely accepted, is that horsemen and swagmen are different.Explicitly asserting the contrary would have been immediately challenged and Baynton never takes this risk. Only with the story's denouement does the reader become aware that the presupposition is false, that both horsemen and swagmen are to be feared. 15 The other technique frequently used by Baynton is that of metaphor and metonymy. According to Catherine Kerbrat-Orecchioni: â€Å"le trope n'est qu'un cas particulier du fonctionnement de l'implicite. †¦ Tout trope est une deviance et se caracterise par un mecanisme de substitution – mais substitution de quoi a quoi, et deviance de quoi par rapport a quoi† (94;109).Readers of Bus h Studies have all too often identified only the substitution, not the deviance. 16 In her detailed analysis of â€Å"The Chosen Vessel† Kay Schaffer examines the significance of the last paragraph of the story in which the swagman tries to wash the sheep’s blood from his dog’s mouth and throat. She is particularly interested in the last sentence â€Å"But the dog also was guilty† (88). Most readers have seen this as a simple, almost superfluous statement, whose only aim is to underline the parallel between man and dog: the man killed a woman, the dog a sheep.Schaffer on the other hand sees here a reference to the first paragraph: â€Å"but the woman’s husband was angry and called her – the noun was cur† (Baynton 81). She analyses the metonymic association of woman and dog and argues that the woman’s dog-like loyalty to a husband who abuses her is open to criticism since as a human being she is capable of making decisions for h erself. According to Schaffer's reading: â€Å"Her massive acceptance of the situation makes her an accomplice in her fate† (165). 17Most readers do identify the woman’s metaphoric association with the cow as a symbol of the maternal instinct but Schaffer again goes one step further and argues that since the woman is afraid of the cow she is consequently afraid of the maternal in herself but in participating, albeit reluctantly, in control of the cow, her husband’s property, she also participates in maintaining patriarchal society and therefore: â€Å"Although never made explicit in the text, by metonymic links and metaphoric referents, the woman paradoxically is what she fears.She embodies ‘the maternal’ in the symbolic order. She belongs to the same economy which brings about her murder† (165). 18 The baby is rescued by a boundary rider, but this does not mean that motherhood emerges as a positive force in the story. Baynton’s title â€Å"The Chosen Vessel† implies that the abstract concept of the maternal can exist only at the cost of the woman by denying the mother the right to exist as a person: The Virgin Mary exists only to provide God with his Son, a wife is there to ensure the transmission of power and property from father to son.At the end of Baynton’s story even this reverenced position is denied women: â€Å"Once more the face of the Madonna and Child looked down on [Peter] †¦ ‘My Lord and my God! ’ was the exaltation ‘And hast Thou chosen me? ’ Ultimately Schaffer argues: If one reads through the contradictions, woman is not guilty at all – she is wholly absent. She takes no part in the actions of the story except to represent male desire as either Virgin or whore †¦ She has been named, captured, controlled, appropriated, violated, raped and murdered, and then reverenced through the signifying practices of the text.And these contradictory prac tices through which the ‘woman' is dispersed in the text are possible by her very absence from the symbolic order except by reference to her phallic repossession by Man. (168) 19 In a similar way Baynton's use of sheep as a metonym for women and passive suffering is often remarked upon but is seen as little more than a cliche.This view is justified by referring to â€Å"Squeaker’s Mate† where the woman is powerless to stop Squeaker selling her sheep, many of which she considers as pets, to the butcher and to â€Å"Billy Skywonkie† which ends with an apparently stereotypical image prefiguring the â€Å"meaningless sacrifice† (Krimmer and Lawson xxii) of the woman in â€Å"The Chosen Vessel†: â€Å"She noticed that the sheep lay passive, with its head back till its neck curved in a bow, and that the glitter of the knife was reflected in its eye† (Baynton 60).Hergenhan does go slightly further by arguing that this is also an example of Ba ynton’s denial of the redemptive power of the sacrificial animal (216) but when the collection as a whole is considered, and the different references are read in parallel, the metonym turns out to be far more ambiguous. 20 In â€Å"Scrammy ‘And† the knife is clearly not a dangerous instrument: â€Å"The only weapon that the old fellow had was the useless butcher’s knife† (41, my italics). Even more significantly in this story the reflection of the moonlight in the sheep’s eyes is sufficient to temporarily discourageScrammy: â€Å"The way those thousand eyes reflected the rising moon was disconcerting. The whole of the night seemed pregnant with eyes† (38). Far from being â€Å"innocent† creatures the sheep are associated with convicts: â€Å"The moonlight’s undulating white scales across their shorn backs brought out the fresh tar brand 8, setting him thinking of the links of that convict gang chain long ago† (42). Nor are sheep seen to be entirely passive: â€Å"She was wiser now, though sheep are slow to learn† (44). 21 In this respect the symbolism of the ewe and the poddy lamb is particularly interesting.The old man claims that this is the third lamb that he has had to poddy. He accuses the ewe of not being â€Å"nat’ral† (34), and having a â€Å"blarsted imperdence† (30). The narrator, on the other hand, describes her as â€Å"the unashamed silent mother† (30). What is being challenged is not her motherhood but her apparent lack of maternal instinct. Once the shepherd is dead, the ewe is capable of teaching her lamb to drink suggesting that it is in fact the man who prevents the maternal from developing. This would seem to be confirmed by the repeated remark that men insist on cows and calves being penned separately.Thus apparently hackneyed images are in fact used in a deviant way so as to undermine traditional bush values. 22 In much the same way, Bay nton’s cliches also deviate from expected usage. For example in â€Å"Scrammy ‘And† the old shepherd sums up his view of women as: â€Å"They can’t never do anythin’ right, an’ orlways, continerally they gets a man inter trouble (30). † By inverting the roles of men and women in the expression â€Å"getting into trouble† the text suggests that values in the Bush are radically different to elsewhere. Something which is confirmed in â€Å"Billy Skywonkie† where the narrator reflects: â€Å"She felt she had lost her mental balance.Little matters became distorted and the greater shrivelled† (55). 23 Similarly the apparently stereotypical descriptions of the landscape in fact undermine the Bulletin vision of Australia. In â€Å"Billy Skywonkie† the countryside is described as â€Å"barren shelterless plains† (47). Were the description to stop here it could be interpreted as a typical male image of the land as dangerous female but the text continues; the land is barren because of â€Å"the tireless greedy sun† (47). In the traditional dichotomy man/woman; active/passive the sun is always masculine and like the sun the men in Bush Studies are shown to be greedy.Although never explicitly stated, this seems to suggest that it is not the land itself which is hostile but the activities of men which make it so. Schaffer sees a confirmation of this (152) in the fact that it is the Konk’s nose which for the protagonist â€Å"blotted the landscape and dwarfed all perspective† (Baynton 50). In Baynton’s work women are associated with the land because both are victims of men. 24 The least understood story in the collection is undoubtedly â€Å"Bush Church†: Krimmer and Lawson talk of its â€Å"grim meaninglessness† (xxii) and Phillips complains that it is â€Å"almost without plot† (155).It is perhaps not surprising that this story should be the m ost complex in its use of language. Of all the stories in the collection â€Å"Bush Church† is the one which contains the most direct speech, written in an unfamiliar colloquial Australian English. These passages deliberately flout what Grice describes as the maxims of relevance and manner – they seem neither to advance the plot nor to add to the reader's understanding of the characters. 25 Most readers are thrown by this failure to respect conversational maxims and the co-operative principal. Consequently they pay insufficient attention to individual sentences.Moreover, the sentences are structured in such a way as to make it difficult for the reader to question their ‘truth’ or even to locate their subversive nature. As Jean Jacques Weber points out, the natural tendency is to challenge what the sentence asserts rather than what it presupposes (164). This is clearly illustrated by the opening sentence: â€Å"The hospitality of the bush never extends to the loan of a good horse to an inexperienced rider† (61). Readers may object that they know of occasions when a good horse was loaned to an inexperienced rider but few realise that the assertion in fact negates the presupposition.Baynton is not talking here about the loan of a horse but is challenging one of the fundamental myths of life in the bush – that there is such a thing as bush hospitality. 26 Once again a comparison with Lawson is illuminating. Lawson's anonymous narrator says of the Drover's wife: â€Å"She seems contented with her lot† (6). In â€Å"Bush Church† this becomes: â€Å"But for all this Liz thought she was fairly happy† (70). Although semantically their meaning is similar, pragmatically they could not be more different.It is not the anonymous narrator but Liz who is uncertain of her feelings and feels it necessary to qualify â€Å"happy† by â€Å"fairly. † More importantly the presupposition, â€Å"but for all t his,† deliberately leaves unsaid the extreme poverty and the beatings to which Liz is subject. 27 Susan Sheridan, talking of Baynton’s novel Human Toll, says: â€Å"the assumption that it is autobiographical deflects attention from the novel’s textuality as if the assertion that it was all ‘true’ and that writing was a necessary catharsis could account for its strangely wrought prose and obscure dynamics of desire† (67).The same is true of her short stories. By persisting in reading her as a â€Å"realist† writer many readers fail to notice her sophisticated use of language. Perhaps because none of the stories has a narrator to guide the reader in their interpretation or because the reader has little or no direct access to the protagonist’s thoughts, or because of the flouting of conversational maxims and the co-operative principal, sentences are taken at face value and all too often little attempt is made to decode the irony or to question what on the surface appears to be statements of fact.Hergenhan queries the success of a strategy of such extreme obliqueness: â€Å"It is difficult to understand why Baynton did not make it clearer as the ellipsis is carried so far that the clues have eluded most readers† (217), but it should be remembered that, given the circumstances in which she was trying to publish, direct criticism was never an option for Baynton. What is essential in decoding Baynton’s work is to accept that it is not about women but about the absence of women who are shown to be victims both of men in the bush and of language.