fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
H2O.ai Launches Python Framework to Develop Artificial Intelligence Apps
By: Code Op Geeks
Tags: Python Development, Python, Machine Learning, Python Programming, Artificial Intelligence

As we all know development of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence Real Time applications is very popular now these days. Most of the people manifested their interest in learning Python programming language and developing ML and AI based Real Time Applications. According to the TIOBE Index Python is top 3rd among all programming languages. Python is High Level programming language which is super easy to learn and efficient to develop Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence based applications.

To make this development less time consumeable and efficient Open Source Leader in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning ‘’H2O.ai’’ launches a Python Development Framework “H2O Wave” to Develop Real Time AI Applications. H2O.ai announced that H2O Wave makes development of real time interactive AI Apps fast and easy for Data Scientists, Machine Learning Engineers and Software Developers. H2O Wave accelerates development with different user interface components and charts including dashboard templates, dialogs, themes and many more.
Starting off a Data Science Journey.
By: Rishabh Choubey
Tags: Beginner Coding, Cricketer, Python Programming, MySQL, Data Science

→ From a Professional Cricketer to Starting off a Data Science Journey.

I was a national Cricketer used to represent my state team in BCCI tournaments for the past 8 years. My journey by far has been a roller coaster ride in the previous profession that I was in . But seeing the world driving towards data and seeing how proper insights and visualization of data can actually impact decision making to a great extent , I was inclined towards this field . During my cricketing years I was fascinated seeing how the sports analysts would change the course of the game by analyzing the numbers of an opponent or an individual. That’s where my inclination towards Data Science increased and I decided to step into this ever growing field of Data Science .

What Data Science is ?

Data Science is a concept that combines Statistics , Mathematics, Calculus , Data analysis , Domain knowledge, applied over a dataset in order to make inferences, reports ,predictive models and visualizing dashboards.

Stream Independent:-

What attracted me most about this field is that it is stream independent i.e it doesn’t matter whether you come from a commerce , arts or any background if you are interested in statistics and fascinated towards data , this field is a huge pond to dive in and have a taste of its waters.
SQLite3: Getting a Head Start
By: Hafsah El-Yakubu
Tags: Beginner Coding, Python Programming, Sqlite3, Sqlite, Data Science

Photo: Unsplash.com

Introduction:

Are you an avid programmer but have always found SQLite3 to be oddly challenging? Here’s a quick tutorial to get you started.

SQLite3 is a complete functional relational database management system (RDSMS) that scales well. It’s the most used database in the world.

In this tutorial, we will start by looking at some important SQLite steps and operations such as: Connecting to table, Update, Select, Delete etc., and then playing with them on a working example.

SQLite comes bundled with Python and can be easily used in any Python application. I assume that you already have Python installed on your computer, and are here for a quick read.

So, let’s get started!
[LeetCode]#1684. Count the Number of Consistent Strings
By: Fatboy Slim
Tags: Python, Leetcode, Python3, Python Programming, Leetcode Easy

Environment: Python 3.7

Key technique: for loop, if, break

You are given a string allowed consisting of distinct characters and an array of strings words . A string is consistent if all characters in the string appear in the string allowed .

Return the number of consistent strings in the array words .

Example 1:

Input: allowed = "ab", words = ["ad","bd","aaab","baa","badab"]

Output: 2

Explanation: Strings "aaab" and "baa" are consistent since they only contain characters 'a' and 'b'.

Analysis:

if find not allowed letter, constant n=n+1 all word number -n =answer

Solution:

class Solution:

def countConsistentStrings(self, allowed, words):



not_match=0

for word in words:

for w in word:

if w not in allowed:

not_match+=1

break

ans=len(words)-not_match

return ans

Submissions:

Reference:

https://leetcode.com/problems/count-the-number-of-consistent-strings/discuss/976002/Easy-python-code-beats-94-of-submissions
A Comparative Analysis between Generator expressions and List Comprehensions
By: Guru Pattnayak
Tags: Python Generators, Python List Comprehension, Python Programming

In Python Framework we can either use generators or list comprehensions to solve many coding requirements, however, a very simplistic classification can be made when to use a generator expression or when to use list comprehensions.

If our focus is to optimize memory or we need our code to consume less memory to store its intermediate results we can use generator expressions instead of list comprehensions(Evidence is clearly visible in the below with explanation).

import sys

list_square=[i**2 for i in range(5)]

gene_sq=(i*i for in in range(5))

print(sys.getsizeof(list_square)) — — This will give the output as 120

print(sys.getsizeof(gene_sq)) — — This will give the output as 112

Reason — Generators use the lazy iterator unlike the normal list which do not store their contents in memory as conventional list object does.

Now, List comprehension has an advantage over generator expressions when computation speed is taken into consideration.

To summarize list comprehensions are faster to evaluate than generator expressions we will see by using a sum function on both List and generator object respectively(Below is the evidence via statistics).

import cProfile

cProfile.run(‘sum([i ** 2 for i in range(10000)])’)

The Output is below:-

5 function calls in 0.007 seconds

import cProfile

cProfile.run(‘sum((i * *2 for i in range(10000)))’)

The Output is below:-

10005 function calls in 0.010 seconds

Clearly we can observe the computation time taken for sum function to complete on a list is 0.007 seconds and the time taken to complete the same sum function on a generator expression is 0.010 seconds.

Thus, if memory is a factor then generator expressions are useful, however if performance is a factor then list comprehensions are a better choice respectively.
Apollo — There’s no if’s!!
By: Priya Rammohan
Tags: Python Programming

return sum(map(lambda x: x ** d, ds))

what is d and ds ?

what does the function return ?

how many brackets does this return statement have ?

what does the function do ?
Automate your ML model retraining with Kubeflow
By: Marc Djohossou
Tags: TensorFlow, Python Programming, Kubeflow Pipelines, Ai Platform, Postgres

Automate your ML model retraining with Kubeflow

Photo by JOHN TOWNER on Unsplash

This is the first part of a 3 parts series where I explain how you can build a cost-efficient and automated ML retraining system with Kubeflow. Along the way, we’ll also pick some best practices around building pipelines.

While Kubeflow Pipelines isn’t yet the most popular batch jobs orchestrator, a growing number of companies is adopting it to handle their data and ML jobs orchestration and monitoring. Actually, Kubeflow is designed to benefit from Kubernetes strengths and that’s what makes it very attractive.

In this article, I’ll show you how you can build an automated and cost-efficient ML model retraining pipeline using Kubeflow Pipelines. As you might already know, retraining ML models is necessary to keep them accurate and cure the model drift curse. In case you are familiar with Airflow or planning to use it, make sure to have a look at this article where I demo how to build the exact retraining system using Airflow.

Now, let’s say you have created a nice ML model to predict the taxi fare of a car drive and serve a first version of the model. The retraining system you’ll be building is made of 2 pipelines:

The first pipeline taxi-fare-predictor trains the ML model and serves it for prediction if the model outperforms the live version of the model. The second pipeline retraining-checker runs every now and then and checks if the model has become obsolete. If so, it triggers the first pipeline.

To make things look real, you’ll also create two additional pipelines to send predictions to the live version of the model, one of which sends inputs that are purposely far from the inputs from the training set. The goal here is to simulate a model drift and have our retraining-checker pipeline triggers the taxi-fare-predictor pipeline. Please, bear with me till the end to build the solution pictured below.

ML Retraining System with Kubeflow Pipelines, Image by Author

Whenever possible, define your pipeline components as yaml files

There are three ways to build a Kubeflow pipeline component:
conda commands
By: Dul S Blog
Tags: Anaconda, Conda, Python, Virtual Environment, Python Programming

conda commands in one tutorial

Please have conda installed yet to computer.

When I was working on Windows I could install mysql, mariaDB, and work with all. Lately in my ubuntu environment I installed mysql first. Then I got a project to work with mariaDB. Then i had to uninstall mysql to install mariaDB. So the best option was conda environment. I could keep mysql and mariaDB on the same computer yet with no issues. In one conda environment I made, there was installed mysql, on the other environment was installed mariaDB.

No issues not only for ubuntu users, but anyone searching for a virtual conda is the best solution. Say you have installed python 3.7, and for one project needed python 3.6, conda is the best solution.

Lets first see if any environments already there inside your conda. If this is the first time you have installed conda.The only environment you should have is base.

conda env list

I have about four environments previously created so I get those environment names listed.

Lets first create a conda environment called my_env. To that environment I m installing python version 3.6.3. You can install a python version as required for your project. To get the python libraries required for Machine learning and Data science. Most of the libraries are installed pandas, numpy, scikit, seaborn and matplotlib along with some essentials you might need as flask and pip.

conda create -n my_env python=3.6.3 anaconda

Say you want to create a blank environment.Use these code

conda create --name blank_env

Then a conda list should display no software.

Yet we only created the environment, and we are still not inside the created environment but we are in the base or default environment. That default means what is the normal environment of our computer, and it has the programs we have installed on it.

Lets activate the environment.

conda activate my_env

Now let’s see all the programs in your newly created virtual environment

conda list

Now let’s install pip on our virtual environment

conda install pip

Now lets install pandas

conda install -c anaconda pandas

Now let’s install postgreSQL

conda install -y -c conda-forge postgresql

Let’s install tflearn

pip install tflearn

Let’s install tensorflow

pip install tensorflow

To exit out of the working conda environment and go to default or your base.

conda deactivate

Now say you want to remove that environment in conda,

conda env remove -n blank_env

Now do a conda env list, and the environment blank_env should be removed.

Have fun coding….
Creating a Dictionary in Python
By: Joseph Hart
Tags: Python, Python3, Python Programming, Software Development, Programming

Creating a dictionary in python is a useful tool that can be applied to machine learning hyper tuning and grid searching. In this blog, I’ll go over how to create a dictionary, go through it, and add items to it.

First, start by creating a variable name for your dictionary. In my example, I called it dict1. You cannot use the name dict because that name is a built-in python function. Dictionaries take squiggly brackets, unlike lists or tuples.

As seen below, Groceries is my first item in the dictionary called a key. It is composed of three elements called values: apple, orange, and pear. I also have a dictionary called Cars. It also has three elements: toyota, honda, and ford.

If I want to see what is in my dictionary, I simply call on my variable.

This is fairly easy to read because we do not have a lot of information. What if Groceries had more than 3 values and we could not see if any other keys existed in our dictionary. We want to know what is in our dictionary to pull all the information we need. To see what keys exist in our dictionary, we type the following:

Typing list in front helps for legibility but is not necessary. Here is what the output looks like without using the list function.

If we want to see the values of the key Groceries, type the following.

Or if you just want the first key

You can also add values to your existing keys. Let’s say I forgot butter in our list of groceries. To add it I would type:

And to check it:

And now I see I have butter.

You can also use a for loop to iterate over your values.
Difficulty With Applying DataFrame.replace()
By: Annika Noren
Tags: Regex, Dataframes, Python Programming

A lesson in “read the fine print”!

Last week I chronicled my frustrating journey to add a column to a DataFrame and fill the new column by extracting a float value from a string of text from another column. This week, using the same DataFrame about books from Machine Hack that is 6237 entries with a target variable of ‘Price’ and 8 features, I decided to turn my attention to the ‘Ratings’ column.

Here’s a df.sample(3) of the DataFrame with the added column, ‘fReviews’, from last week:

Sample of 3 Entries from the Books DataFrame

My plan this week with the ‘Ratings’ column was to extract the number and put it into a new column, ‘iRatings’. As is the case with most of my coding ideas — easier said than done. I encounter two small problems right off: changing data types and using complex regex statements. The ‘Ratings’ column is of type object. Even when I try to change it — and set it equal to itself (an important lesson learned from last week!)-it still doesn't change.

Before:

Data Type of “Ratings”

And after:

Data Type of “Ratings” Unchanged

Moving on to my other problem…My attempt to extract the number out of the ‘Ratings’ column fails because my regex skills are shaky when there is a comma in the number! Therefore, I’ll remove the commas in the ‘Ratings’ column and make the regex extraction easier.

In order to confirm that commas are successfully replaced, I first create a list of the ‘Ratings’ to see how many entries in the column have a comma in them:

Create a List of ‘Ratings’

Check to see if there are commas with my comma checker function:

Check for Commas in ‘Ratings’

Yes, indeed there are 20 ‘Ratings’ with a comma.

Indulge me a slight sidetrack at this point — use of str.replace() with a text string. The syntax is:

str.replace(old, new[, count])
Stepping Out and Closing the Gender Pay Gap
By: Sarah Dyers
Tags: Gender Equality, Share Trading, Share Market Tips, Womens Pay, Gender Pay Gap

According to the latest stats the gender pay gap in Australia has hit a record high of 18.8%. This means that men earn on average $300 more a week than women. There seems to be many voices and campaigns working towards closing the gap but in the meantime it’s up to women to use their business knowledge and entrepreneur skills to close the gap themselves. Women need to act smarter to look at ways to top up this salary gap – after all $300 per week is not that much extra. In fact it is the sort of money which can be made from running a small online business, investing in property, teaching a community class or running a stall at the local markets on the weekend.

For me it was an easy choice of investing in shares. There were two main reasons for choosing shares. Firstly, I have skills in this area obtaining a diploma in Financial and can invest while holding down a full-time job. Secondly, my mother is an expert at investing in shares and over the last six months has very successfully attained 20% returns for her SMSF. When you look around for a role model it’s extremely convenient if the furthest you have to go is your parents’ house.

Investing in shares can be an easier venture, then other forms of investing, as you can start with as little as $5K (although $10K is better to be able to diversify). Crucially important is having someone to bounce ideas off and to discuss share trades. Working with my mother has been a good combination as she excels at the fundamental side of trading, whereas my background in Excel and data analysis, gives me the skills to concentrate on the technical side of trading e.g. looking at candle charts and the MACD. The returns I receive are not as high as my mother’s (who has years of experience) but the challenge is to improve those profits!

There is still a long road ahead to close the gender pay gap. Don’t wait for the world to do the right thing by you. It is achievable to work towards closing the gap yourself, with the only person being accountable is you.
- Afshan
Tags: Gender Equality, Sexual Abuse, Psychological Abuse, Physical Violence, Violence Against Women

there is nothing for you without struggle if you want to achieve your goals you need to work hard and then you achieve each and everything 🙂💕
Huntress goddesses are fairly commonplace throughout the world, which could indicate that the…
By: Jane Stoll
Tags: Gender Equality, Gender Roles

Huntress goddesses are fairly commonplace throughout the world, which could indicate that the modern view that women would be less effective hunters than men is probably not true. Anyone can learn to track an animal and down the prey with an arrow, and the European goddess hunters were all archers. Also, the more Viking female graves we uncover, the more we find women buried with hunting and fighting grave goods. It seems to follow that when survival was at stake, whoever was good at tracking and shooting game would have been involved in the hunt, regardless of sex. Likewise with the Vikings — historians are now finding ample evidence that, while male Vikings led the charge into battle, archers, some female, followed behind shooting a volley of arrows over the heads of the squadron at the enemy.

Other gender roles were very different in Viking times, too. Women were always the accountants and money managers, which gave them great social power. This was because Vikings believed math was magic, and magic was strictly the domain of women. While men went out fishing or viking, the farms tended to be run by women, and women did much of the farm work. In harsh, difficult climates it made sense for everyone to pitch in when and wherever needed.

I grew up on a Norwegian farm in the 1960s. I baled hay, raised hogs and cattle, did farm chores, drove tractors, etc. with the boys, all with the blessing of my parents, grandparents, great grandparents, Norse neighbors and friends. No one ever questioned or criticized this and no one was ever surprised that a girl was doing tons of farm work. I also learned to cook, sew, keep house, keep books for the farm. Nothing was forbidden because of my sex. When necessary, my aunts also helped with the farm work. My grandmother raised the chickens and butchered them herself. She also tilled, planted, and maintained a huge vegetable garden and orchard. I suspect this lifestyle is much closer to ancient living — some roles were gendered, others were not (i.e., the boys were not taught cooking and sewing).

Whatever was most practical for survival was the overarching rule.
Gender Equality!? (Men and women?) What about Transgenders??
By: Sania Dad
Tags: Gender Equality, Amal Academy, Transgender Rights

Transgenders generally face discrimination while searching for a job and are compelled to beg, dance, or work as prostitutes to earn money.

Transgenders are also known as “khawajasiras” in Pakistan. An umbrella term denotes the third gender that includes transvestites and eunuchs who have long struggled for their rights in the deeply male-controlled and conservative country. In 2009 Pakistan became one of the first countries in the world to legally recognize the third sex. In March 2018, Pakistan’s parliament passed a historic bill providing transgender people with the right to determine their own gender identity in all official documents, including choosing a blend of both genders. Despite all these approved laws, they are not welcomed by our society, not even by their own parents.

The status of transgenders is not good in Pakistan. We forget the fact that transgenders were personal guards to most of the Mughal Emperor until the British arrived in the 19th century and banned them.

In Pakistan, the rights of transgenders are severely violated as they are not given due respect in society. They got abandoned by their parents and family and have to face the harsh judgmental stares of society. Many transgenders fall victim to sexual harassment. The higher authorities are not taking any action for them. Recently they got some chance to raise their voice in the form of Julie (trans activist) who was later got arrested by police. Trans people generally face discrimination while searching for a job and are forced to beg, dance, or work as prostitutes to earn their living. Even the educated and qualified transgenders are not given jobs due to their gender differences.
My life, climate change
By: Shireen Pasha
Tags: Gender Equality, Human Development, Violence, Training, Violence Against Women

Our inner voice is a mighty instructor. It’s best to just learn from everything.

My father didn’t teach me to fight. My inner voice did. Since I was a baby, I have been running from violence. I must have been less than a year-old when my mother sent me out with the maid. She didn’t want me to watch my father beating my sister in a closed dark room — because some boy followed her to school or something silly like that.

When I was seven, I often stood between my sister and father when he wanted to beat her. I couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t fight back. Her response to this crushing normalcy in our house was to try to end her life by drinking Clorox poured into an orange plastic cup. I found her. I found the cup. I told my parents to call the ambulance. My sister survived and I watched her trying harder to meet my parents’ demands. She gave up her school work and began working in Mcdonald's to contribute to the household bills. She worked more than forty hours a week. She smelled like pickles at night. I watched my parents still unhappy with her. They needed more from her: more money, more piety, more obedience. Over the years, I saw my sister change. She couldn’t hold onto her truest self.

By the time I was a sixth-grader, I was feeling the pain of my father calling me a whore on a regular basis. He prophesied that I would walk around whoring the world. I noticed his eyes were glassy and sharp in these fits of rage. It happened the most when I would sit to do my homework. I finished high school in this mess, taught myself to drive, to swim, to bike, to be proactive — to never give up my empathy. I put myself through college no matter what obstacle came my way. If you ask my mother what I studied, what I was passionate about — she won’t be able to tell you.

I forgive my parents. They wanted a son, not a girl, especially not a dark one. Before my mother went for an abortion, she dreamt that the child she was carrying was Rabia Basri. So, she couldn’t have an abortion. My parents tried their best with what they knew. In addition to my father’s glassy eyes, I noticed his private moments of remorse for his pathetic behavior.

I read this morning that it will take 287 years for us to achieve gender equality. I think it will take longer if we try to achieve it through silos of focusing exclusively on the girl child. We have to focus on the education of both genders to upgrade our thinking; celebrate differences and work in symbiosis. We have to have short-term goals and long-term goals and we must work in small scales to cover the globe.

I want to support the world in this endeavor. Are you with me?
Why “leaning in” Won’t End the Gender Wage Gap
By: Anne Kim
Tags: Gender Equality, Wage Gap, Career Advice

As a freelance writer, I find that the hardest part of the job isn’t coming up with ideas or sitting down to write. Rather, it’s putting a fair dollar value on my work. I have yet to figure out how much to ask for or what my time is worth. So I tend to accept the first offer, grateful for the chance to be published (hey, it’s tough out there).

I’m not alone. Many women I know — even those who are extraordinarily successful — confess they hate negotiating their pay. Though unafraid to advocate for others, these women find it supremely uncomfortable to advocate for themselves.

Surveys find⁠ that most women, in fact, don’t negotiate their salaries, a phenomenon that contributes to the persistent wage gap between women and men. That’s why so many career advice sites urge women to negotiate and offer up tips⁠ on how to ask for more money successfully.

But recent research suggests that “leaning in” can’t erase the pay gap — at least not by itself. Men are more likely to succeed when they negotiate, and for many women, attempts to negotiate backfire. Sexism, it turns out, isn’t something women can negotiate away. As a new study⁠ from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) argues, the right way to achieve equal pay isn’t to “fix the women” but to “fix the institutions” that allow wage disparities to persist. Fair pay demands enlightened employers and aggressive public policy to root out discrimination.
Why Is A Promiscuous Man Treated Differently To a Promiscuous Woman?
By: Michaela Grek
Tags: Gender Equality, Sex, Sexism, Conversations, Life

As a woman, I’ve experienced being on the side of stereotypes. I’ve received the judgemental look or speech from an ex-boyfriend or two. They’d lament over my number or how quickly I moved on after a breakup. While I can’t speak for the men population unless I decided to become Michael tomorrow, there are two observations I’ve made to these instances. 1) Women should have slept with fewer people than their boyfriend, and 2) women should become celibate for an x amount of time post-breakup.

Generally speaking, if this were reversed, these expectations suddenly change or disappear. The male counterpart is high-fived, congratulated, and encouraged to keep their number of past sex partners go up. He is also not stopped and asked why he gets over someone by getting under someone; as a matter of fact, it’s expected of him. Of course, there are exceptions to every rule but this is at least what I’ve been exposed to in media, TV, real-life experience, and conversations with male friends.

If I wanted to dig a bit deeper here, I’d also point out the opposite to be true in some scenarios. 1) Women with too few sex partners are inexperienced, and 2) women take too long to recover from a breakup.

Why are these obvious differences still present?

Let me know your thoughts or experiences below.
Perspective on Gender
Tags: Gender Equality, India

One of the biggest concerns of our society is Gender Equality. It is one of the Greatest issue which is still intact with Racism. In this blog post we are going to take a look at this gender issue present in our society.

We are going to cover following points:

1. Gender

2. Why we should think in terms of Ratio?

1. Gender

Male, Female what else is there to differ in, Nothing. In this world every single person has at least a life.

Many times we see that homosexuals or people from LGBTQ community are taunted or teased but it is not their fault that they are born this way it’s just that at the time of their growth in their mother’ womb some biological phenomena might’ve happened and that resulted in this kind of human being. God or The creator created the two equal parts MALE and FEMALE. Both have special abilities without each other they are nothing. FEMALE character of society has a god given gift in understanding relationships (it is fading away) while in a relationship with a man or anyone they care about them if they love them, they know better than man how to keep things going around and how to provide support in difficult times, it is a rather special ability whilst so MALE character of society is more of outdoor persona. He is able to do work of a FEMALE character if the FEMALE is out there. We should think about gender equity rather than gender equality.

2. Why we should think in terms of Ratio?

The concept of thinking in terms of ratio is quite exciting. Let’s say there is young couple, just married both have jobs with a good income. Both are working hard but there is a problem in their marriage it is not working out. Then they decide to think in terms of the married life in terms of ratio the wife is earning more money than the husband. Then they look at their daily schedules wife leaves home early and comes up later than the husband now here comes the issue even if the wife is coming late she has to do all the work after turning up from work that means that if a marriage life is 100% then 75% of work in marriage is done by the wife and only 25% of work husband is doing. So to balance it they decide to change their daily schedules husband controls the whole home cooking, laundry and other similar stuff and wife decides to do the work outside home such as paying bills and shopping and all that stuff now what happened here is that the husband took the load of housework out of his wife’s shoulders and after some time living like this they found out that He is now promoted both earn equal money both of them are doing in the work in home and outside too now their life is 50–50 equally contributed.

In Indian society the wife does all the work inside home and the husband is the one who is earning money so both are equally contributing their marriage.
Why did we Vote for Brexit?
By: Jessie London
Tags: Gender Equality, Brexit, Womens Rights, Feminism, Politics

Why did we Vote for Brexit?

Photo by Dylan Bueltel from Pexels

On 23rd June 2016, 72% of the United Kingdom turned out to vote in what was described by our Prime Minister as the ‘biggest democratic exercise’ in our history.

Be in no doubt, this decision was one that was not taken lightly.

Brexit was discussed over dining tables around the kingdom, dividing our nations, dividing our genders and dividing our families from John O’Groats to Lands’ End.

When it came to it, the margin was only 3.78%.

We would leave the EU.

Why Had the UK Made This Choice?

Both the Remain and Leave Campaigns focussed on a number of points;

Control — decision making powers around legislation

Immigration — opening the UK borders to all EU member states

National Identity- currency especially; Brits are very passionate about ours.

Money- the economic pros and cons of belonging to the EU

On the day of the election, a large poll was conducted by Lord Ashcroft, aimed at understanding why Brits made the choices they did — the results of this survey were released after the votes were counted and revealed:

Graphic by Jessie London. Source of Data — How the United Kingdom voted on Thursday… and why — Lord Ashcroft Polls by Lord Ashcroft lordashcroftpolls.com.

Surprisingly, despite heavy campaigning around economic benefits of leave or remain, only 6% of people felt that this consideration factored into their decision.
The Gender of Architecture
By: Pranjal Maheshwari
Tags: Gender Equality, Architecture, Women In Architecture, Feminist, Gender Identity

An Outlook in Indian Context

Co-authors: Shobhan Venkatesh and Diksha Garg

The sky turned pink and the office gloomy; as I shut down my system and packed to leave, I gazed back at the mirage that had stayed still all these years.

Even in my thirties, life keeps me wondering about what did I not do properly that has left me back-stage? When I graduated, I wanted the curtains to rise to my enthralling act.

I live in a big city with a tiny desk of mine in a small firm. They say small ventures lead to a big outcome; but what does it matter if your outcome has been overlooked, despite your sincere efforts? That is what these seven years have taught me. In all the projects, my sphere of learning was limited to within the office building.

But life is peaceful, I would admit that. When I decided to be an architect, I was not encouraged but questioned. Financial issues were a prompting factor. ‘People your age are well settled already, and look at you! What about a family of your own? This is why I kept telling you, you are not destined for this beta,’ my mother’s words echoed whenever I couldn’t gather applause on ‘stage’.

What defines your destiny? Is it what you do or how you do it? Falling into oblivion where everything around me defied me being a worthy architect. Maybe I am not good enough! I thought sitting on the same desk, looking at the same mirage, through the same window; five years later. I’m married now and have a beautiful daughter. I decided to pay attention to the fruitful part of my life rather than my immovable career; earlier I believed talent was all you needed to be under the spotlight. I grew tired but never gave up; not for success but merely to find out ‘Why not?’
Apropos of nothing, men think they’re better than me at things
By: Lade Tawak
Tags: Gender Equality, Patriarchy, Inequality, Personal Essay, Feminism

I do not remember if the boys communicated their discontent about my apparent smartness to the teacher or if he heard us muttering about it, but somehow, he found out. And so, we had a class competition. It was all the interested boys versus me.

The rules were simple: there’d be a 5 question test that we had to complete within a specified time period — I forget how much time — and all the boys who scored lower than I did would be labelled class monkeys — I still don’t know why my teacher chose monkeys — and their names would be written on a cardboard and displayed right in front of the class. I don’t remember the exact questions, but they covered concepts we were yet to learn.

I, smart ass that I was, was unperturbed by this test. I’d always been top of my class before then, and I scored highly on the random mental Math tests that we had without warning in this new class.

When I think back to this story, I wonder: what made these boys so self-assured? I think about the reasons the girls didn’t feel (or express) that they could compete with me, and why the boys believed that they were inherently better than me just because I was a girl. What do we teach boys and girls that make them see the world differently. Is it in telling boys: “how can you let a girl win you in that contest?” from as early as primary school? Is this why boys feel entitled to the best things while girls feel that they should settle?

Sometime in late 2017, a picture was circulating on social media. The photo was allegedly of a classroom in Northern Nigeria. In it, the girls were sitting on the floor and the boys on chairs. Are we inadvertently (or even purposely) teaching girls that they are worth less than boys? Telling boys that they are better than girls just because they are boys?
Why this lockdown is not as bad as we think it is in the long run, especially for women
By: Ashik Chowdhury
Tags: Gender Equality, Family, Positive Thinking, Covid 19

2020 could not finish early enough. All of us at some point in time dearly wished this year was just a nightmare. The personal losses people have suffered are incomprehensible. One outcome of the pandemic I think may turn out to be better than we presume it will: lockdown. And I am not referring to the well-established ‘greener planet’ argument.

Surprised at how my 6-year-old just eased into online-based schooling

A tightly knit family outfit: Never in the history of the modern family, working parents and their children had the opportunity or obligation (depending on how you see it) to spend so much time together. My wife and I knew more about the daily challenges we face at work. For starters, I now understood far better what she meant by a ‘bad day.’ We could also divide and conquer our child’s zoom classes. Lunch breaks turned from having a brown bread sandwich while frowning at my screen to sitting at the terrace with my little princess while she chatted away. Hand on heart, our family chemistry has taken a new height. And I am sure that is the case for many of you.

Working from home redefined: Generally, WFH culture depended on the organisation, geography and especially the manager. Now being forced, some of these draconians have finally realised that WFH is not as inefficient after all. Many firms have taken leaps in technology and processes that now have enabled them to offer flexible working conditions. Post pandemic, people working for these organisations and leaders will certainly have an easier time living the new normal.

An efficient and gender-balanced way of work: Legacy organisations often carried traditional views about a standard workday. A Banker, for example, would wake up early in the morning, suite up, commute to the workplace, only to leave office after an hour to meet a client. Now, the same individual could save time by not having to dress-up as much, commute and waste time in detouring. This shift and the evolved WFH culture, in turn, could help balance some of the gender inequalities. New mums would love the option to spend more time with toddlers without having to compromise their careers. Many organisations are also giving a hard look at the fixed costs they are incurring from office space. Again, this somewhat forced but accelerated transition could only mean a leaner and more efficient corporate world.

All these points may sound like a drop in the ocean of hardship. But one can always hope that the future is brighter because our learnings in these unprecedented times.
'Mens’conception
By: Abhyudya Rathour
Tags: Gender Equality, Men, Masculinity, Freedom, Equality

Illustration credit: freepik.com

75% of depression reported cases are from men.

5/6 suicides committed are by men.

Tags/assumptions of carrying the family forward financially.

Let’s talk about something we seldom shed light on.

Generations have passed by, and yet men are suppressed under the limiting norms of society on the basis of which they define masculinity.

Image credit: unsplash.com

The term ‘man up’ wildly circulated and preached about holds the dictionary meaning ‘to act tough’. Isn’t that what the society expects men to be molded into? Being ‘tough’, thereby restraining them from being their true selves. They are detained from the liberties of emotion and expression. Their vulnerability is a joke which carries heavy labels of ‘unmanly’ and ‘weak’. The slogans “Men don’t cry!”, going about have exacerbated their mental health as a result of which, they’ve been held back from being vocal about the concerns they undergo.

In today’s age where we see a commendable outrage on issues pertaining to women’s safety and health, there is still light yet to be shed on the problems faced by men. The harassments men go through are yet to be highlighted. The abuses they encounter has not yet been brought to surface due to the fact that men still hesitate to open up about their experiences. It is shaken off as a laughable topic of discussion. Men facing harassment and rape is still an untouched region which one refrains from talking about cause otherwise they would be condemned and critiqued with jokes like ‘people would kill to be in your shoes’. Hence, such cases are seldom reported.

Image credit: unsplash.com

Currently, their comfort isn’t a questionable choice.

The evolution has gone haywire to a direction where men have to prove their innocence or else, they are proclaimed guilty. Incidents such as “boys locker room” taken place in the recent past acknowledges the same. Their reputation has become so fragile that it can be easily tarnished with certain false accusations and claims. There are still plenty clips circulating round the media which has uprooted the image and shamed many innocent men even with a prevailing lack of evidence. Claims of rape and acts of extortion and intimidation such as “I’ll cry rape” can destroy men’s image to damage beyond repair.

Image credit: unsplash.com

Men who have voiced out earlier have faced backlash on social media for promoting content on the same. People show loathe and hate on the comment section showering them with negativity for sharing their intrigues or following a certain direction. (For eg. Siddharth Batra)

Masculinity is a flawed definition, being expressive and emotional doesn’t make you weak or any less of a man. Men’s mental health isn’t a joke, it's something we should come together and spread light upon. Let's expand and remould the definition of masculinity. Let us be empathetic and show acceptance towards the well being of men. Let us encourage their freedom of thought and expression. Let us come together and support the cause of the same.
Battle of the canines.
By: Alloyce Lugoma
Tags: Gender Equality, Life Lessons, Peace, Life

Battle of the canines.

Photo by The Humantra on Unsplash

Sitting on the couch, I observe my German shepherds Lucy and Max fighting. At first, I think it is the normal play but no, there is a bone involved. It definitely is the cause of the fight. I didn’t react, rather I sat back and watched as Lucy and Max grappled for the bone. It got interesting as Max managed to hold onto the bone and Lucy also had a grip on it, it was truly a battle of the sexes. “Which sex will emerge the winner and go away with the bone?” I thought aloud. In the midst of the grapple, the bone fell and went under the couch; both Lucy and Max were unable to get hold of it again.

They tried but they couldn’t reach it so they forgot about it and continued playing together like brother and sister.

This battle brings out a clear picture of life about how the male and female gender are busy fighting for gender equality. No gender wants to lose the bone and be inferior to the other. We all want a share of the bone. Let us drop the bone my brethren and focus on living life as a whole unit and not as male and female. We all are unique in different ways and if we unite, we will have a good time on earth.
Equity starts at home….
Tags: Gender Equality, Diversity And Inclusion, Inclusion, Woman Health, Equity

Equity starts at home….

Even after 2 out of 3 men have gone forever, the woman of the house didn’t get her name published.

With a conservative backdrop, it’s always an unsaid norm to adopt the male surname, only the patriarchs name falls on the name board etc etc.

It’s time to make those subtle changes.

And change starts home.
Book Sips #44 — ‘Invisible Women’ by Caroline Criado Perez
By: Lena Haydt
Tags: Gender Equality, Booksip, Book Review, Women, Bookrecommendation

🚀 The new PM Library is live! Join here.

Invisible Women is a must-read for everyone — no matter which gender, position, or industry. It reveals how 50% of the population has been overlooked (and keeps getting) when designing our world. Caroline Criado Perez went beyond the typical comparison of gender and outlines this by providing a huge number of case studies and research. I don’t want to lie: seeing these numbers is shocking and leaves you feeling angry and sad! Perez not only shows devastating data, but she also points out the deficits our world has by excluding women on a regular basis and what benefits our societies will gain when changing this.

Invisible Women is a thought-provoking and eye-opening book. It has the power to make a real change and can help to design a better future with everyone included and thought off in the first place.

A sip:
Why so many people don’t recognize themselves as a feminist
By: Nicolas Zolghadri
Tags: Gender Equality, Gender Equity, Feminist, Equality, Feminism

In 2018, YouGov polled 7 countries in Europe (Great Britain, Germany, France, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland) about feminism.

Only 25% (an average) of people in these countries call themselves a feminist.

At the same time, we can notice the increasing number of online movements like the #MeToo movement, feminism associations, or many essays like the popular one We should all be feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi.

It is perhaps unexpected that so many people don’t recognize themselves as feminist. Although, 83% of people think men and women should have equal rights and status in the society and be treated equally in every way. Yes, these statistics seem very contradictory.

It seems people don’t reject the term feminism because they are against gender equality. Actually, according to the National Center for Social Research, only 8% of people in the UK agree a man’s job is to earn money, a woman’s job is to look after the home and the family (against 43% of the population in 1984). The traditional and conservative ideas about gender roles decreased each year.

It appears we can explain these conflicting statistics by the misinformation about the real definition of feminism.
What TOP IBS Master Students have to do with the Global Gender Gap.
By: Sarah Höckner
Tags: Gender Equality, Marketing, Business Women, Gender Pay Gap, Feminism

All TOP IBS Master Students of the MSc in Marketing.

I am so proud to be amongst this year’s TOP IBS Master Students of ISCTE Business School, where the university recognises students for outstanding academic performances. What makes me happy is the fact that I could share this moment with nine of my wonderful classmates, as collaboration and teamwork lies at the heart of our Marketing Studies — I am so proud of us, yay!

There was one other observation that gave me a fortifying feeling of empowerment: More than 60% of ISCTE’s TOP Master Students were female! So many strong and smart women bringing home those awards — truly inspiring.

But unfortunately university performance is often little representative of the ‘real world’. Despite significant advances, women remain underrepresented in leadership positions in politics and business across the globe. The Global Gender Gap Report 2018, which was published last Monday by the World Economic Forum, shows devastating numbers. Across the 149 countries assessed, on average, only 18% of ministers and 24% of parliamentarians are women. Moreover, women hold only 34% of managerial positions across the countries where data is available on these issues. At current rates of progress it may take another 217 years to close the economic gender gap globally.

Being aware of these numbers is important for politicians and policy makers, CEOs, managers, women and students, as the Gender Gap has something to do with all of us. 60% of the TOP IBS Master students are female, so why does this number simply cuts in half after university and in the workplace?

How can we change this?

We, as women, can change this by being proud of our successes, confident with our choices and hungry for opportunities. We should empower and help each other because together, we have the chance to enable change! And everyone else? Join us. Challenge gender stereotypes you learned in your childhood, listen to others’ stories of struggle and success and be more compassionate. With everyone involved, we can achieve a level playing field, champion diverse leadership and give opportunities to everyone who deserves them.
Freedom underlies within us
By: Anushka Shrivastava
Tags: Gender Equality, Humanity, Equal Rights, Life, Feminism

My existence is not defined by rules set by the society.

I am human guarded by a powerful soul , and the power which I have got .

I am here to live as I am with my choices and my flaws,

I am here for a reason with a destiny uncertain, my work would define my identity and not my gender.

For the pre-given wings to me are mine , nothing’s my limit to fly .

The mind , which has got a thirst to quench the curiosity, is not different, it is natural .

No one has the right to tell me what I am supposed to be cause I am born here to rule my own kingdom, my life .

The love for freedom underlies within me .