4.2: Tendentious Jokes are Immoral
What is a tendentious joke? As a first approximation it’s a joke that uses stereotypes as part of its structure and which is designed to introduce or reinforce a bias. The stereotype can appear in either the set-up, the punchline or both. If you want a classic example of a tendentious joke just think of a joke which hinges on the idea that blonde persons (especially women) are not as smart as everyone else. In its most common form tendentious jokes use negative stereotypes. There are, of course, many examples of tendentious humor, as many examples as there are negative stereotypes. 18
So, what’s wrong with this kind of humor? Isn’t it, like any other humor, just using the shared cultural background of the comedian and audience? Don’t all jokes play on expectations in some way? Can you even tell a joke without using some sort of stereotype? We don’t have space in this chapter to address the broader questions about humor, but it will be fruitful to consider the issue briefly, at least as a point of comparison.
The simplest answer is that not all humor uses stereotypes because humor is broader than joking. Physical humor and practical jokes, for example, can be performed without leaning on our shared assumptions about different groups of people. If we restrict ourselves to verbal humor, we can still find jokes that do not use stereotypes. Knock knock jokes and observational humor are examples of joke styles that do not rest on stereotypes:
What did the 0 say to the 8?
Nice belt. 19
It is possible, therefore, to be funny without using stereotypes. Does that mean that we should always avoid using stereotypes? Aren’t there non-harmful stereotypes, even positive ones? If a joke uses the stereotype that isn’t derogatory is that still a problem? In other words, is it harmful to use any stereotype, full stop, or is it only harmful if we use negative stereotypes?
Types of Stereotypes
To better answer that question we should consider some examples of stereotypes that we might use in a joke.
- salespersons are mendacious,
- Asian people are good at math
- men are childish
To begin to see what’s wrong with this sort of humor we can start by looking at the differences between those three examples. Once we’ve teased them apart we can more easily consider why stereotype using jokes should be avoided.
To start with we can see that (1) is about a category of persons that is not an intrinsic property. No one is born working in sales. Anyone who does work in sales can choose to quit and pursue a different line of work. So, when we make jokes about salesperson, lawyers, doctors, etc. we are not making fun of a characteristic that a person has no control over. Indeed, using the name for a job or career is just a shorthand for a series of actions. They don’t describe inherent characteristics like skin color, gender, height, etc.
Does this make it OK to make jokes that incorporate the sort of stereotypes that we see in (1)? Maybe. For now, we can note that while it seems right to say that making fun of what a person does is not as troubling as making fun of who a person is, the people who are being mocked may not like it very much anyway.
Another important difference between the examples is that (1) and (3) are negative stereotypes while (2) is, at least on its face, a positive stereotype. It seems likely that putting someone down in a joke is worse than lifting someone up, and using a 130 positive stereotype might be an example of the latter. However, we should note that people do not always see eye to eye on the issue of whether or not a particular stereotype is positive. Latines are stereotypically said to have a good sense of rhythm. 20 This might be a positive stereotype, if you’re Latine and looking to find a dance partner. But it can be a negative stereotype if you are a Latine with two left feet who keeps getting asked to dance by strangers who just assume that you are good dancer.
Indeed, in some cases, like the example in (2), putatively positive stereotypes are seen as a bad thing by many persons within the community. Many Asian Americans, for example, suffer from being used as examples of a “model minority.” 21 The stereotype that they are good at math, and science, is part of that burden. So, we can conclude, that, at the very least, if you are using a stereotype that you see in a positive light, you cannot be sure that it will be seen that way by everyone. Furthermore, the use of stereotypes whether positive or negative will inevitably reinforce biased attitudes toward that group. If nothing else, this should cause some concern.
One last distinction that we can point to is that (3) refers to a group, men, who are generally in positions of power in our society. Does this mean that it’s OK to make fun of them? Many comedians subscribe to the notions that it’s acceptable to punch up, but not to punch down. Which is to say, it’s acceptable to for someone to make of fun of people who have more power than the joke-teller or the audience. The idea, in brief, is that the group that is the butt of the joke, because of its privileged position, cannot actually be hurt by the joke. It is probably right to say that the ability to be harmed by a joke, or a stereotype, varies with the amount of privilege a person or group has within society. More powerful people, whether their power is economic, socio-political or structural are less likely to be vulnerable to the opinions of others. When you think of things this way it does seem like punching-up is a victimless crime. We should note, however, that even if some groups are less harmed than others by tendentious humor, that doesn’t mean they aren’t harmed at all. And, again, reinforcing biases that make it harder to see persons as unique individuals, and not merely tokens of their group, is something that we should be wary of.
So, we can see that even when we are just discussing tendentious humor and the use of stereotypes in a general way the whole thing is, at best, a problematic practice. Even before discussing the sorts of harms tendentious humor can cause we can see that there is at least a prima-facie case for concern.
Let’s turn to the specific harms that tendentious humor can cause.
The Harm of Tendentious Jokes
In this section we’ll look at three harms that tendentious jokes can inflict. 22 Of course, this is not an exhaustive catalog of the harms of stereotypes in humor, but, even this brief list will make a strong case against tendentious humor.
We can start with the observation that individual members of a group, even one with significant institutional advantages can be hurt by the stereotypes in humor. Many individual men are no doubt bothered or hurt by the media’s depiction of men as barely functional, overgrown children. It should be even more obvious that persons who are not as privileged as cis, straight, middle class men will often be hurt by the stereotypes used in jokes.
And even in the case of jokes about jobs and not identities, it’s not hard to imagine that a lawyer being aggravated at the millionth telling of the “good start” joke. It is true that these jokes are not as damaging as some others, we might think of these instances as small scale harm, but it is a real harm nonetheless. And yet consider that tendentious humor isn’t the only way to get a laugh, that the harms just mentioned, small as they may be, are not tempered by any great need. How can we then justify these jokes?
Of more concern are jokes that reinforce harmful stereotypes for groups of persons that are in positions to be harmed. Many racial, religious, ethnic and gender minorities spend their lives in harms way. They do not have the institutional advantages to protect them, as a class, from the damage that stereotypes can do. The biases employed in jokes exposed them to even greater danger.
The most obvious way in which tendentious humor is harmful is in the way that it can demean entire groups of people by employing negative stereotypes. 23 Anyone with a minimal awareness of humor and jokes is aware of the many shameful ways in which minorities can be depicted: Jews are greedy; blondes are dumb; Muslims are hateful; immigrants can’t be trusted; women are crazy; and fat people have no discipline. To name just a tiny fraction of the stereotypes that are often used in humor. Consider how queer men and women might feel when they hear friends casually retelling homophobic jokes. But there is a different, more subtle, way in which stereotypes used in humor can be harmful.
One way in which jokes cause harm is via their role in social policing. Social policing is the use of social cues, such as humor, to reinforce norms. Take, for example, the social norm that men should be stoic. 24 The notion that men are weak or less manly, if they show almost any emotion 25 is enforced by peer groups via jokes at the victim’s expense and which employ stereotypes to debilitating effect. You can see much the same effect in the supposedly playful teasing of little girls who don’t express enough interest in being typically feminine. The girls quickly learn that to the only way to stop the teasing is to conform to the toxic norms. And, of course, recall that even in the case of so-called positive stereotypes, like the stereotypes of Asian students, the attitudes displayed in jokes, and stories, that employ them reinforce biases that place unfair pressures on the affected groups. Tendentious humor, when deployed in this way, robs us of individuality and the freedom to be the persons we want to be.
Finally, if we look at the role of stereotypes in reinforcing prejudicial attitudes, we will see a third type of harm. Jokes that employ stereotypes reinforce biases which cause fissures within society. The primary mechanism is similar to the what happens in the social policing examples, jokes use stereotypes to reinforce biases, but in this case the effect is to highlight and harden the differences between groups in society. This type of humor creates an in-group and an out-group. The out-group is mocked, belittled and out-right insulted with no particular care given to the effects of these actions. This is perhaps the most harmful result of tendentious humor.
Recall the example of jokes that make fun of people working in sales. We can now see why, even though a job is not a central part of a person’s demographic identity, and so making fun of a lawyer is different from making fun of a black person, lawyer jokes still encourage us to adopt divisive insider/outsider attitudes.
When we make jokes at the expense of certain groups we set the stage for thinking of them as fundamentally different from us. This, in turn, makes it easier to think of the out-groups as alien, as not really belonging, and as inferior. Of course, this is in itself a bad thing, but it also makes it easier to pass laws and take actions that directly harm the out-group. There is a direct line between making jokes denigrating a group and adopting a hateful attitude toward the group. This style of humor drives wedges between in-groups and out-groups in a way that isn’t just about solidarity or cultural affirmation, but about hurting the out-group.
Answering the Objections
If tendentious humor supports some of our ugliest tendencies, then why is it so prevalent? It’s defenders often resort to two defenses:
- Free Speech
- It’s just a joke
The free speech defense is insufficient. It is simply not the case that we can say anything and everything that we wish to say. There are prohibitions against lying on the witness stand or using racist language at work. It is true that not all forms of insulting or harmful expression are formally disallowed by law or corporate policy, but simply being free to say a thing does not make it acceptable to say it. We have a right to express 134 ourselves, but this does not give us a right to harm others. If tendentious humor is harmful, then it ought to be avoided by good people whether or not it is officially censured.
The more common defense among persons who enjoy this humor is that they’re just jokes and that the offended group is too thin skinned. In other words, humor is not able to actually harm you, if you don’t let it. It seems very unlikely that this is true. In the case of children being shamed into conforming with toxic norms it’s not at all clear that they can defend themselves from the harm. In the case of out-groups the harm comes from the in-group’s behavior, as affected by the humor-reinforced biases. How is a thick skin meant to keep a black person from being denied a promotion because of their skin color? How is a thick skin meant to keep an immigrant from being denied a job because of their accent?
Finally, proponents of tendentious humor assert a particularly problematic attitude. They argue that their preference for a type of humor is more important than anyone else’s preference to avoid being denigrated and harmed. Is this a reasonable position for a good person to take? Should it be acceptable, morally or socially, to simply not care about the effect your words have on other people?
At the very least a person who wants to enjoy tendentious humor about blondes adopts the attitude that they don’t think blonde women deserve to feel upset. The joke teller also does not care, if blonde women do get upset. Is that an attitude that a good person would embrace?
Jokes like those we have been discussing are harmful in themselves, but even more importantly they help to desensitize us to the resulting and related harms that accompany the humor and makes it easier to do even more and greater harm.
Footnotes
18 It is possible that a joke can express a bias without resorting to stereotyping. A joke could simply be insulting, crude or dehumanizing. In this essay, we will focus on the use of stereotypes, however the conclusions that we draw will hold true for tendentious humor across the board.
19 Share this joke with any male parent, they’ll love it.
20 Latine, pronounced lah*tee*neh, is a newer word that takes the place of latinx. Latine sounds better to fluent Spanish speakers and can be conjugated, in Spanish, in a natural way: un latine, los latines, etc.
21 https://cmhc.utexas.edu/modelminority.html
22 It would be a good exercise for the reader to consider what harms have been left out.
23 Here we will focus on negative stereotypes, but recall that even seemingly positive stereotypes can be harmful.
24 Boys don’t cry.
25 Men are allowed to be angry and horny and that’s about it.


23.2: “Square One” - What are We Talking About?
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Because the word “game” can describe many very different activities and varieties of play, we start with a few definitions. Speaking very generally,
A game is a set of activities with goals, rules, and competition (possibly with oneself) that involve one or more players in an artificial situation (Dempsey et al., 1996; Sauvé et al., under review).
Games such as tennis, basketball, Tic Tac Toe, chess, checkers, and Monopoly have been around much longer than computers. Since personal game machines and computers have become widely available, a wide variety of dynamic, interactive electronic games have appeared in many genres. Some familiar titles are the Carmen Sandiego series, Myst, Doom, various sports games, and EverQuest.
Many computer-based games are based on simulations, for example: The Sims, Roller Coaster Tycoon, or MBA management training games.
A simulation is a dynamic, simplified but accurate systems model of aspects of reality (Sauvé et al., under review).
Simulations in which learners have defined roles, with responsibilities, constraints, and feedback in complex data-rich environments, allow them to develop problem-solving skills and experience the effects of their decisions (Gredler, 2004). Simulations are often useful because they let players learn from their mistakes without, for example, crashing planes, killing patients, or sending companies into bankruptcy.
Adding performance goals, scoring, and competition among players or with oneself can turn a simulation into a game (Sauvé et al., under review; Sauvé et al., 2005a). The term simulation game refers to these hybrids and includes a wide variety of commercial games that simulate real-world activities. The distinction among games, simulations, and simulation games is important as a foundation for studies relating learning outcome effectiveness to characteristics of the learning activity (Sauvé et al., under review).
Games can use a variety of technologies including boards and tokens, fields and balls, dedicated game machines (PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo DS), personal computers, and handheld devices (cell phones, personal digital assistants [PDAs]). In this chapter we focus on games for computers and handhelds.
An Internet search will lead you to games for learning in practically any discipline. Some examples, found on the Social Impact Games site (www.socialimpact games.com), include:
- education games covering school subjects such as algebra, history, chemistry, computer software, and criminology;
- public policy games designed to educate the public on citizenship, democratic participation, and policy issues, such as Cyberbudget France on the French national budget, and several US election-related games;
- political and social games designed to stimulate discussion or promote views on world issues (e.g., world agriculture, drug dealing, human rights);
- health and wellness games teaching about health issues and management (e.g., for asthma, cancer, heart health, child predators, and self-esteem); and
- learning applications of commercial games: job simulations (e.g., emergency room), resource management (SimCity, Railroad Tycoon), history (e.g., Oregon Trail, Rise of Nations).
Similarly, simulation applications are many and varied, including:
- business: Computational models that generate business results and provide feedback for practising planning and decision-making for simulated periods (e.g., months, years). Goals are often profit-related. Areas include strategic management, marketing, finance, operations, investments; specific industry simulations, e.g., the Cornell Management Game (www.cms -training.com/);
- public policy: Simulations of government, educational, or international organizations or scenarios, e.g., Virtual U university management simulation (www.virtual-u.org/);
- military training: War strategy, equipment, battle, support scenarios, e.g., America’s Army, a virtual online army simulation (aimed at recruiting) produced by the US government (www.americasarmy .com/);
- flight: Simulations of specific aircraft controls, airports, flight paths, e.g., CAE commercial training simulators ( http://www.cae.com ); PC-based flight simulators ( http://www.pcaviator.com or http://www.microsoft .com/games/flightsimulator/);
- medicine: Physical or computer-based models of medical processes and problems for developing and testing clinical skills, e.g., patient simulators, surgical simulators ( http://www.msr.org.il/About_MSR/Medical _Simulation_Equipment/);
- memergency response: Immersive emergency scenarios and environments for testing systems and decisions, e.g., Unreal Triage ( http://www.ists.dartmouth.edu /projects/seers/utriage.php); and
- leadership development: Simulated scenarios for practising interpersonal and leadership skills, such as Virtual Leader (www.simulearn.net/leadership training.html), Change Game (www.vanderbilt .edu/lead/simulations.html).
For the rest of this chapter, we will be concerned with games, simulation games and game-like simulated environments that involve play, exploration, and problemsolving but may or may not required explicit scoring and competition. In common with the popular use of the term, we will use “games” to refer to them collectively. Training simulations that are specifically oriented towards technical skills development, e.g., flight simulators and medical patient simulators are beyond the scope of this discussion.
Computer-based games are played by individuals and groups in many configurations. They can be single- or multi-player, played on a single computer, or multiple networked machines, in classrooms, or online. Handheld games can also support individual learning or collaborative learning with teams and groups, and particularly lend themselves to games involving player movement around physical settings. Internet-based massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) attract thousands of players in complex, evolving interactions and scenarios, including ones created by players themselves. Computers and especially handhelds can also be used to support blended learning situations in which game play happens through face-to-face interactions and activities rather than on screens.
Example \(\PageIndex{1}\)
Second Life is a virtual online world built by its “residents” and populated by their avatars (online characters). It includes a dedicated campus area where educators can build and offer virtual classes including simulations. Here learners can “use simulation in a safe environment to enhance experiential learning, allowing individuals to practise skills, try new ideas, and learn from their mistakes. Students and educators can work together in Second Life from anywhere in the world as part of a globally networked virtual classroom environment.” ( http://secondlife.com/community/education.php )


1.2: Current Trends in Women’s Health Care
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Discuss the goals of Healthy People 2030 for improvement of the health of persons AFAB
- Explain morbidity and mortality of persons AFAB and children and quality improvements to address their health status
- Recognize taboos in the health care of persons AFAB
- Describe how persons AFAB advocate for themselves
Health care evolves as new information is provided by research and new treatments become available. Organizations focused on health promotion and disease prevention can provide goals and objectives to guide the public in improving self-care and well-being. U.S. statistics on morbidity and mortality are published yearly and scrutinized by researchers and health-care providers to make improvements. Many quality improvement initiatives are implemented to address these poor outcomes. Recognizing taboos and stigma related to reproductive health can improve outcomes for persons AFAB. As taboos are addressed and education is provided to the public, persons AFAB continue to advocate for positive changes to create positive outcomes.
Healthy People 2030
The U.S. Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion reviews data regarding the health of the nation to identify conditions negatively affecting the population and creating objectives to address these conditions. Healthy People 2030 (n.d.) is a set of evidence-based objectives aimed at improving health and wellness. Evidence-based care refers to utilizing research to guide decisions and interventions to provide the safest, most effective care. Nurses and health-care providers use these guidelines to provide the most up-to-date care.
Healthy People 2030 (n.d.) objectives address health conditions such as addiction, heart disease , obesity , pregnancy, and sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Objectives also address health behaviors such as child development, family planning, preventive care, vaccinations, and violence prevention. Populations addressed in the objectives range from children to adolescents to older adults, as well as LGBTQIA+ persons and people with disabilities. Many settings such as global health, schools, hospital services, and the workplace are covered. The objectives also address social determinants of health that affect economics, education, health-care access, neighborhoods, and communities.
Many objectives are dedicated to the health and wellness of persons AFAB, including pregnancy, childbirth, violence protection, and gender inequity. The nurse uses these objectives to help educate people regarding health promotion and disease prevention . Patient education based on these objectives can help prevent cervical cancer , heart disease, and adolescent pregnancies, as well as elevate the health and wellness of persons assigned female at birth ( Healthy People 2030 , n.d.). Refer to Chapter 3 Health Promotion, Disease and Injury Prevention, and Well-Person Care for further discussion of Healthy People 2030.
The nurse can explore objectives addressing many different diseases and health conditions as well as different populations of people and groups by reviewing Healthy People 2030.
Health Status of Women and Children
In 2021, the top three leading causes of death in the United States for persons AFAB were heart disease, cancer, and stroke ; 10 percent of persons AFAB smoked cigarettes; and 42.1 percent were obese (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2023b). Persons AFAB have unique health issues involving pregnancy, childbirth, menopause, osteoporosis, and physical violence. The nurse must be aware of social disparities and differing access to health care when educating and caring for these patients.
Morbidity and Mortality
Morbidity and mortality are terms used in epidemiology. Morbidity is a term used to describe a specific condition or disease affecting people. Mortality is a term used to describe the number of deaths due to a specific condition or disease. These terms are usually reported as a ratio or rate. The results are used to evaluate the health of a population to investigate the cause of the death or illness.
Maternal Mortality
The death of a person while pregnant or within 42 days of birth or termination of pregnancy that was not accidental is called maternal mortality (Hoyert, 2023). The maternal mortality rate in the United States for 2021 was 32.9 deaths per 100,000 births (Hoyert, 2023). The World Health Organization (WHO; 2023) reported more maternal mortality in low-income countries; causes for those deaths include severe bleeding, infections, hypertension (preeclampsia and eclampsia), complications from delivery, and unsafe abortions. In the United States, maternal mortality occurred 2.6 times more often in non-Hispanic Black persons than in non-Hispanic White persons (Hoyert, 2023), and overall the United States has the highest maternal mortality rate of any developed country. Figure 1.2 summarizes maternal death by ethnicity. Research from 2017 to 2019 from 36 states has also shown that more than 80 percent of pregnancy-related deaths were preventable (CDC, 2022a). Table 1.1 lists causes of preventable maternal deaths. Nurses caring for pregnant patients should be aware of the causes of preventable maternal deaths and help develop guidelines to mitigate those risks.
| Cause of Preventable Death | Persons Who Died from This Cause (%) |
|---|---|
| Mental health conditions (e.g., suicide, overdose/poisoning related to substance use disorder) | 22.7 |
| Hemorrhage (excludes aneurysms or stroke) | 13.7 |
| Cardiac and coronary conditions (e.g., coronary artery disease, pulmonary hypertension [HTN], congenital valve and heart disease, HTN/cardiovascular disease, and Marfan syndrome; excludes cardiomyopathy and HTN disorders of pregnancy) | 12.8 |
| Infection | 9.2 |
| Embolism-thrombotic | 8.7 |
| Cardiomyopathy | 8.5 |
| Hypertensive disorders of pregnancy | 6.5 |
| Anaphylactoid syndrome of pregnancy (previously known as amniotic fluid embolism ) | 3.8 |
| Injury (homicide, poisoning, unknown cause of intent of injury) | 3.6 |
| Cerebrovascular accident | 2.5 |
| Cancer | 1.9 |
| Metabolic/endocrine conditions | 1.2 |
| Pulmonary conditions | 1.2 |
Fetal Mortality
The intrauterine demise of the fetus at any gestational age is called fetal mortality ; however, most states in the United States require reporting those deaths occurring only at and after 20 weeks’ gestation (Gregory et al., 2022). The U.S. fetal mortality rate for 2020 was 5.74 deaths per 100,000 for the population overall and 10.34 deaths per 100,000 Black people (Gregory et al., 2022). The top reasons for fetal death included death of unknown cause; complications with the placenta, cord, or membranes; maternal complications of pregnancy; maternal conditions unrelated to pregnancy; and congenital malformations (Gregory et al., 2022).
Infant Mortality
The death of an infant before their first birthday is called infant mortality . In 2020, the U.S. infant mortality rate was 5.4 deaths per 1,000 births, and the most common causes of infant mortality included birth defects, preterm/low birth weight birth, sudden unexplained infant death syndrome (SUIDS), injuries, and maternal pregnancy complications (CDC, 2022b). Infant mortality also skews higher in non-Hispanic Black people, with 10.6 deaths per 1,000 births in 2020 (CDC, 2022b).
Childhood Mortality and Morbidity
The death of a child under 5 years of age is called childhood mortality . In 2021, the childhood mortality rate was 25 deaths per 100,000 people in the United States, with the most common causes being accidents, congenital malformations and chromosomal abnormalities, and homicide (CDC, 2023a). The WHO (n.d.-b) revealed a worldwide reduction in childhood mortality from 12.8 million in 1990 to 5 million in 2021. The most common causes of childhood morbidity (illness) worldwide are congenital anomalies, injuries, and noncommunicable diseases (WHO, n.d.-a).
Maternal Mortality in Pakistan
Omer et al. (2021) published a paper on the social and cultural practices in Pakistan that affect maternal mortality . Pakistan, the fifth most populated country in the world, has a maternal mortality rate of 140 deaths per 100,000 births. Culture and religion play a role in this high mortality rate. Muslim women many times use “faith-based” health-care providers instead of medically trained providers. Also, Pakistan is a patriarchal society, and women are treated as subordinates with little or no say in their reproductive health . They lack autonomy to seek health care and often lack transportation to areas with medical facilities. The Three Delays Model explains that complications of pregnancy could be avoided if the following were not delayed:
- delay in making the decision to seek care
- delay in reaching a health-care facility
- delay in receiving the required maternal health care
It is important for nurses to consider the cultural background of their pregnant patients.
Quality Improvement Measures
In 2020, the Surgeon General’s Call to Action to Improve Maternal Health suggested that everyone could contribute to lowering the maternal mortality rate by following these suggestions:
- Recognize the need to address mental and physical health across the life course—starting with young girls and adolescents and extending through childbearing age.
- Support healthy behaviors that improve women’s health, such as breast-feeding, smoking cessation, and physical activity.
- Recognize and address factors that are associated with overall health and well-being, including those related to social determinants of health.
- Understand that maternal health disparities exist in the United States, including geographic, racial, and ethnic disparities, and work to address them.
- Acknowledge that maternal age and chronic conditions such as hypertension, obesity, and diabetes are risk factors for poor maternal health.
- Learn about early “warning signs” of potential health issues that can occur at any time during pregnancy or in the year after delivery.
- Work collaboratively to recognize the unique needs of women with disabilities and include this population of women in existing efforts to reduce maternal health disparities.
Nurses can help decrease maternal mortality by providing their patients with education on these suggestions.
Destigmatizing Topics in Women’s Health Care
Many sensitive topics exist in women’s health care, such as abortion and birth control. These sensitivities are related to religious affiliation, infertility related to cultural norms and expectations, and menstrual problems related to concepts of modesty. Not only does the public shy away from discussing these issues, but persons AFAB may be afraid to seek help for these issues when necessary. In response to this problem, many organizations and groups are advocating for policy changes and improved public education. For example, the Kenyan Policy on Menstrual Hygiene Management attempts to debunk taboos and stigmas by providing education to destigmatize menstruation (Olson et al., 2022). In the United States, access to reliable contraceptives is a vital tool to reduce unintended pregnancies and to plan for safe, healthy pregnancies. The American Care Act requires that insurance plans make contraceptives available to women at no out-of-pocket cost (Planned Parenthood, 2018).The rate of teen pregnancy has decreased with the accessibility of birth control. Sexual dysfunction is rarely discussed but impacts people’s lives and relationships. Some providers are using the 5 A’ s model of A sk, A dvise, A ssess, A ssist, A rrange Follow-up to ensure that the topic of sexual dysfunction is always discussed at a health-care visit, removing the burden of initiating this conversation from the patient (Arthur et al., 2022). Teen Health Mississippi, an educational website for teens, addresses several taboos surrounding birth control, including “If you get on birth control, it means you get around,” and “A woman should not carry condoms because it’s not ladylike” (Travis, 2020). Nurses can help destigmatize these taboos and educate their patients on the normality of these situations. Nurses can also provide support and resources to help their patients.
Women Advocating for Themselves
Some conditions such as heart disease and cancer are diagnosed later in persons AFAB than in persons assigned male at birth (AMAB), and persons AFAB are being educated to advocate for themselves. Self-advocacy is the ability to overcome challenges in health care in which a person’s preferences, needs, and values are met (Thomas et al., 2021). An article discussing cardiovascular health suggested for persons AFAB to:
- pay attention to what their body is telling them;
- make sure their health-care provider listens to them;
- ask questions about treatment; and
- gather support from friends, families, and health groups (Doner, 2022).
Persons who self-advocate can improve their quality of life and possibly reduce health-care disparities (Thomas et al., 2021). The nurse can assist the patient to advocate for themselves by encouraging questions and discussing expectations of health treatment plans.
New Generations, New Expectations
The new generation of persons AFAB who are seeking health care have expectations of being treated fairly, being presented information for informed consent , having their health-care information remain private and confidential, and being a part of the decision-making process (American Hospital Association, n.d.). A survey of persons born between 1981 and 1996 found that 93 percent want a relationship with their provider; however, 85 percent of those surveyed felt health-care providers cared about them only when they were ill (American Hospital Association, n.d.). The survey also found that this population wanted holistic health to be supported, for providers to support their total well-being, and for providers to produce a relevant, personalized experience. Nurses are taught to listen to patients, support their decisions, and provide information for health promotion and disease prevention and can meet the needs of this new generation.


15.6: Three Modes of Cultural Labor
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- Anthony Fung
- University of California Press
The two dimensions of creativity dependence and creativity tolerance yield four possible quadrants or formations of cultural labor. The fieldwork in Asia yielded at least three modes of cultural labor.
Progressive Artists
Cultural labor in Korea works in a democratic, free-market environment where the business model of games depends on both internal consumption and export. The conditions of the market, the democratic system, and the business models of the games companies are similar to those in the United States. Koreans used to be the leading players in the games market in Asia and still contribute to many leading games on the market. One of the most important games is Aion: The Tower of Eternity , a MMORPG released by NCsoft, a major Korean game developer. It was first released in Asia in 2009, and by May 2009 had acquired 3.5 million subscribers in the region, where China is the largest market under its operator Shanda Interactive Entertainment. Aion was later localized for Western markets, including North America, Europe, and Australia.
My interview with a former NCsoft programmer who was involved in developing Aion revealed the conditions of Korean cultural labor. The venue of the interview was picked by the interviewee: the backyard of a stylish coffee shop in the Bochun area, a district featuring well-preserved traditional Korean houses where artists reside. During the interview, I saw visitors going back and forth taking photos. The interviewee was well aware of the overly romanticized lifestyle of cultural labor in the area. Because of their strong programming skills and sophisticated tastes, which are in high demand, they are able to pursue a relatively uninhibited lifestyle. The interviewee is now a graduate student at Seoul National University writing a thesis on the Korean creative industry. He has confirmed that he will return to work at NCsoft after completing his graduate degree. Coincidentally, another programmer I met was also a graduate student, at Yonsei University. As he explained, he became interested in games when he was in high school. His mother promised to pay his tuition at a private game college where students studied game programming, if he passed his college entrance exams with flying colors. He did, which allowed him to study game design and work for a game company while also studying as an undergraduate student at Yonsei. The money he earns as a game developer is considerable and allows him to pay the tuition at Yonsei, which is one of the most expensive private universities in Korea.
The information revealed in the interviews suggests that these cultural workers are part of an educated elite in Korea. They can be regarded as middle-class workers with a flexible schedule and relative creative autonomy. They readily switch between studies and work, and living expenses are not a financial burden. Hence, they resemble artists enjoying a high standard of living. Moreover, they are able to live in downtown Seoul, which is unaffordable for many university graduates. The interview with another Seoul National University student who wanted to enter the industry revealed that the expected average annual salary was around two to three million Korean Won (US$20,000–30,000), which is not a particularly high salary, but the increments could be very high, depending on performance.
I deliberately discussed politics in Korea with them, particularly asking them about President Park Geun-hye, the first woman president in East Asia and the daughter of Park Chung-hee, president of South Korea from 1963 to 1979, when South Korea was a military dictatorship. Interestingly, the interviewees did not seem concerned with politics and soon changed the topic to the history of gaming in Korea, game development, and the support provided by KOCCA. This does not mean that they were not reflective or critical, but it is a significant shift from their parents’ generation, when educated young Koreans were passionate about politics. Unlike the old days under authoritarian rule, they have a strong belief in the current electoral and democratic system, which allows individualism and generally supports creativity. Subscribing to civic nationalism, they highly value the authorities’ rapport with the games industry.
Skilled Conformers
Cultural laborers working in the Southeast Asian region, including Singapore, Malaysia, and Vietnam, can be considered skilled conformers. In the major cities in these countries, cultural workers take pride in subcontracted jobs from Hollywood and elsewhere. In response to our question of why Singapore was chosen to inaugurate a Disney game in Asia, the CEO of Infocomm said that for Disney, “it is difficult to have control in other countries. [Singapore] is the only place that they will feel that everything will be accomplished according to their plan.”
Asian cultural labor perceives China as the most profitable market in Asia aside from the United States and Europe (the CEO of the distributor of World of Warcraft in Singapore concurred). If these small- and medium-size Asian companies could break into the Chinese market, American game giants would entrust them to be the distributors to the Chinese market. The dependence on the American market, in their view, is not imbalanced; instead their view aligns with the government’s point of view, and they feel privileged to be the “Asian arm of Hollywood.” They believe that their creative industries have greatly contributed to making Singapore an international cosmopolitan city on par with the professional standards of Hollywood. In 2014, the Singaporean government aimed to attract Disney and Lucasfilm to locate their Asian headquarters in a futuristic horseshoe-shaped building, the Sandcrawler, in Fusionopolis, the new cyber area of Singapore. In a joint effort, the National University of Singapore and the Media Development Authority launched the Singapore Hollywood Attachment Programme, which networks with top IDM (Interactive Digital Media) institutions in the United States to place Singaporean students. These are conscious efforts by Singapore to keep up with the West. In short, they want to follow, conform to, and defend the Western standard of creativity.
On the other hand, the philosophy of cultural labor is synchronized with the official ideology of the state. Executives and employees of major game companies in the region express a strong sense of social contribution and harmony, values they share with the authorities. Infocomm, the Singapore game distributor mentioned earlier, launched many offline activities to attract online game players to socially beneficial causes, including their blood donation event. Virtual gifts were given to players who participated in the event.
According to the CEO of a major Malaysian game company, Codemasters Studio, both the company and its employees embrace global standards while also maintaining local values. Codemasters, which has been in operation for seven years, is like many other companies in Southeast Asia. It started by producing CGI for Pachinko and now focuses on subcontracted game art for overseas clients in North America, the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe, and Japan. The CEO of the company explained that he is proud of the fact that most employees were trained in Malaysia but they are all familiar with creative products from around the world. Given that awareness, he notes, “When you talk about style we are quite flexible. I will say that it is our strength actually. So we don’t really favor any type of style, but we are quite flexible. When we actually talk to people like those from the UK, or from the U.S., we communicate quite well. Moreover, I think the main strength is our communication.”
The strength of these Malaysian laborers, as they see it, is that they embrace Western aesthetics. In fact, most feel “superior” in that they share among themselves values that are not local but cosmopolitan. In other words, they regard Western values as more modern, trendy, and worldly than indigenous Malaysian values. As we found in our fieldwork, most of these workers display Western pop culture decorations—including posters, toys, and games—in their offices, work spaces, and production sites to demonstrate their artistic, avant-garde, modern values. Their work spaces provide a stark contrast to other offices in Kuala Lumpur.
Contented Bourgeois
Cultural labor in China is characterized by contented bourgeoisie. China’s domestic cultural market is as large as the American market, and in Asia, China competes with Korea for exports. There is always a perceived shortage of talent in the market. The entire cultural labor market in China can be explained by the literal Chinese translation of Yu Xin’s (513–581) ancient Chinese expression “Crouching tiger, hidden dragon.” The essence is that China is full of talent that remains unseen and undiscovered. The fact is that in major Chinese cities and universities, this hidden talent has to be actively sought by major game companies. They prefer to appear as “curling roots”—crouching tigers that are content with politics and society as long as their lives are settled. Thus if game companies want to expand, they must provide incentives to attract workers from leading universities and other game companies.
The head of a game engine programming team at Perfect World Company—one of the largest online game companies specializing in MMOPRG in China and an IPO company on the NASDAQ—described the trajectory of his work experience. He started with a Taiwanese company and produced the strategy game Three Kingdoms . He then was brought in by Perfect World to lead a game production team. When asked about his views on developing games, he offered a very pessimistic response, saying that it is very difficult to break out of the corporate culture to launch a small start-up. Although his team is exceptionally talented, with the capacity and know-know to develop a full-fledged game engine on its own, the path is full of obstacles. The biggest problem is financing. He mentioned that at least two phases of capital investment are required to develop a game. On average, RMB 12 million is required in the first year, mainly for salary, and in the second year, a special bonus or commission has to be distributed to the team. The high investment makes it impossible for him to start his own business. Hence most people seek refuge in big companies, where the corporate culture is pragmatic rather than imaginative or spiritual. The guiding principle is the contractual relationship, which specifies incentives based on commissions or stock options. When asked how long he would continue to work for this game company, he responded, “Right now I am quite distressed. The day drags—it’s okay to stay in a big company. People resigned because [the job] is too demanding and life is too stressful. I am now twenty-six. I am too old; I can’t move.”
However, in terms of salary relative to living standard, these workers in fact lead affluent lives. Based on our estimation of his monthly salary, which is at least RMB 30,000, the interviewee could live luxuriously. However, he rented a small, old apartment and worked long hours, and he said that he did not have much of a personal life in the city, since he devotes most of his time to his job.
We heard similar concerns from the vice president of Perfect World. The interview was conducted in a canteen on the ground floor of a complex located in the Shangdi district of Beijing, an area designated for high-tech industries. Despite the building’s postmodern appearance, office decorations hardly reflected the bohemian values of the so-called cultural laborers. Against the plain gray walls and floor, the tables were packed close to each other, and people sat back-to-back on low-budget chairs in a closed, noisy, stuffy environment. In contrast to this dull, monochromatic interior, the food was extraordinary! The entire interview was conducted in a quiet corner of the canteen. I was on my way out after finishing the interview when I came across a senior programmer sitting at a crowded table outside the canteen. He seemed socially detached and relatively subdued. I would say that he and his team, who sat around him, were quite content with the bland office environment.
This visit to Perfect World immediately deflated my fantasy about these cultural workers. It seems that on both organizational and individual levels, the lifestyles of these workers were among their lowest priorities. My visits to the game production sites of the giants, Perfect World and Qilin, as well as to smaller-scale game companies, reconfirmed my presumption that these workers were concerned with sales figures, not lifestyle. In contrast to high-tech companies like Yahoo! and Gamania, which equip their offices with coffee bars and play corners against walls of highly contrasting orange and gray, these companies have large-scale offices with endless partitions and small cubicles where a programmer or artist sits.
It could be said of cultural labor in China that despite the “creative” nature of the industries, the programmers, artists, and marketers in these game companies resemble industrial workers in their tastes, aesthetics, and lifestyles. Their offices and hubs, sometimes called creative clusters, resemble factories where games are produced on computers and servers instead of machines on an assembly line.
The blind pursuit of wealth amid a chaotic market is typical of China. From the perspective of cultural laborers, because they are constantly exploited by the system, what matters to them is the immediate financial reward, not a fancy lifestyle that might not be sustained for long. While the individualistic pursuit of desire is on par with those in the creative industries in the United States and Europe, other factors differ. On the individual level, the assumption of a democracy of economic agents is not valid because China is not a state that allows free choice. 19 In the market, if competition or entrepreneurial actions drive knowledge, then that knowledge, hence creativity, does not exist because the market, particularly the cultural market (for example, media, books, and films), is dominated by a very few wholly or partly state-owned companies. 20 Even when creativity exists, it is distorted. In this unregulated “market,” both investors and entrepreneurial consumers seek to navigate an array of choices to maximize their benefits without the baggage of intellectual property and copyright as in the West. 21 As many interviewees expressed, once a game of considerable popularity is published by a small company, major players simply clone it and improve its quality).


3.4.3: Gram-Positive Cell Wall
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Learning Objectives
- Compare and contrast a gram-positive and negative stain
Gram-positive bacteria are stained dark blue or violet by Gram staining. While Gram staining is a valuable diagnostic tool in both clinical and research settings, not all bacteria can be definitively classified by this technique, thus forming Gram-variable and Gram-indeterminate groups as well.
It is based on the chemical and physical properties of their cell walls. Primarily, it detects peptidoglycan, which is present in a thick layer in Gram-positive bacteria. A Gram-positive results in a purple/blue color while a Gram-negative results in a pink/red color. The Gram stain is almost always the first step in the identification of a bacterial organism, and is the default stain performed by laboratories over a sample when no specific culture is referred.
In Gram-positive bacteria, the cell wall is thick (15-80 nanometers), and consists of several layers of peptidoglycan. They lack the outer membrane envelope found in Gram-negative bacteria. Running perpendicular to the peptidoglycan sheets is a group of molecules called teichoic acids, which are unique to the Gram-positive cell wall. Teichoic acids are linear polymers of polyglycerol or polyribitol substituted with phosphates and a few amino acids and sugars.
The teichoic acid polymers are occasionally anchored to the plasma membrane (called lipoteichoic acid, LTA), and apparently directed outward at right angles to the layers of peptidoglycan. Teichoic acids give the Gram-positive cell wall an overall negative charge due to the presence of phosphodiester bonds between teichoic acid monomers. The functions of teichoic acid are not fully known but it is believed to serve as a chelating agent and means of adherence for the bacteria. These are essential to the viability of Gram-positive bacteria in the environment and provide chemical and physical protection.
One idea is that they provide a channel of regularly-oriented, negative charges for threading positively-charged substances through the complicated peptidoglycan network. Another theory is that teichoic acids are in some way involved in the regulation and assembly of muramic acid sub-units on the outside of the plasma membrane.
There are instances, particularly in the streptococci, wherein teichoic acids have been implicated in the adherence of the bacteria to tissue surfaces and are thought to contribute to the pathogenicity of Gram-positive bacteria.
Key Points
- Gram-positive bacteria stain violet by Gram staining due the presence of peptidoglycan in their cell wall.
- Peptidoglycans are attached to negatively-charged lipoteichoic acid monomers important for cell direction and adherence.
- Lipoteichoic acids are covalently linked to lipids within the cytoplasmic membrane, thus connecting the peptidoglycans to the cell cytoplasm.
Key Terms
- Gram stain : A method of differentiating bacterial species into two large groups (Gram-positive and Gram-negative).


14.2: Putting It Together- Employee Rights and Responsibilities
In the workplace, as in society, employees and employers have both rights and responsibilities. Federal, state and local laws afford employees a number of rights, including the right to control their financial (credit) information, the right to access their personnel information, a right to engage in “concerted” and political activity and to engage in lawful behavior outside the workplace. Legislation and business requirements also impose responsibilities, including the responsibility to conduct oneself in a professional manner—for example, abiding by business policy, standards of professional conduct and safety and health requirements—and to meet performance expectations.
One of the areas that is a danger zone for both employees and employers is social media. The National Labor Relations Act (discussed further in Module 13: Union–Management Relations) protects the rights of employees to “act with co-workers to address work-related issues,” including discussing pay, benefits or other working conditions with one or more co-workers on social media. [1] However, there’s a limit to that protection. Public social media comments that are offensive, maliciously false or that are unrelated to working conditions (for example, disparaging an employer’s products or services) do not constitute protected activity. Also a single employee’s social media rant that is not part of a broader discussion of labor issues is not protected activity.
As discussed in Avoiding Bias in Selection and this module, employers use of social media for identifying or evaluating candidates or employees behavior can pose a risk of discrimination based on a protected category such as age, gender, and race. As the legal information website Justia.com notes: “The EEOC has taken the position that personal information from these sites may not be used to make employment decisions on prohibited bases.” [2]
Conversations on these sites is also likely to reveal protected information such as a criminal record or health information. That said, employers do have a responsibility to police social media—especially if employers are accessing social media on work computers. For example, Justia notes that “if your coworker posts sexually harassing or derogatory information about you away from the workplace, your mutual employer can be liable for a hostile work environment if it knew of the posts or if the harassing party used work equipment, such as a work laptop, to do the harassing.” [3] Justia also cites litigation that used an employee’s Facebook postings as evidence to substantiate a co-worker’s claim of workplace racial harassment.
Enforcement—in this case, discipline—is essential to maintaining a high-functioning organization. What’s at stake is not only company culture, it’s employee productivity and well-being, the business’ brand and, ultimately, business sustainability. Discipline protects not only your employees and clients, but your business assets and interests. For example, a “toxic” employee—defined as “a worker [who] engages in behavior that is harmful to an organization, including either its property or people” [4] —increases turnover and associated costs and decreases productivity. Researchers also concluded based on client customer surveys that toxic workers “absolutely” damage a company’s customer service reputation. [5] Perhaps more disturbing, researchers have found that toxic behavior is contagious; specifically, “that when a toxic person joins a team, others are more likely to behave in a toxic fashion.” As Inc. magazine’s Leadership Mindset columnist Marissa Levin notes “Leaders who wait to contain toxic damage risk losing everything.” [6]
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“
Concerted Activity.
” NLRB. Accessed September 20, 2019. ↵
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“
Social Media Policies
.” Justia, September 2018. ↵
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Ibid. ↵
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Bookbinder, Dave. “
Toxic Workers Are More Productive, But the Price Is High
.” TLNT, April 20, 2018. ↵
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Ibid. ↵
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Levin, Marissa.  Inc. Accessed September 12, 2019. ↵


16.10: Non-Finite Verbs
- Identify gerunds, participles, and infinitives
Just when we thought we had verbs figured out, we’re brought face-to-face with a new animal: non-finite verbs. These words look similar to verbs we’ve already discussed, but they act quite differently. A finite verb is one that has a subject and functions as the main verb in a sentence. By definition, non-finite verbs cannot serve as the main verb in an independent clause. This means that they don’t provide the action of a sentence. They also lack a tense. While the sentence around them may be past, present, or future tense, the non-finite verbs themselves are neutral.
For example, look at the following sentences. The finite verbs are in bold in the following sentences, and the non-finite verbs are underlined:
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- Verbs appear in almost all sentences.
- This sentence is illustrating finite and non-finite verbs.
- The dog will have to be trained well.
- Tom promised to try to do the work.
There are three types of non-finite verbs: gerunds , participles , and infinitives .
Gerunds
Gerunds all end in -ing : skiing , reading , dancing , singing , etc. Gerunds act like nouns and can serve as subjects or objects of sentences. They can be created using active or helping verbs:
- I like swimming .
- Being loved can make someone feel safe.
- Do you fancy going out ?
- Having read the book once before makes me more prepared.
Participles
A participle is a form of a verb that is used in a sentence to modify a noun, noun phrase, verb, or verb phrase, and then plays a role similar to an adjective or adverb. The two types of participles in English are traditionally called the present participle (forms such as writing , singing and raising ) and the past participle (forms such as written , sung, and raised ).
Here are some examples of participles being used to modify other elements of the sentence, acting as an adjective or adverb:
- Present Participle: “The sleeping girl over there is my sister”; “She ducked into the running water”; “ Breathing heavily, she finished the race in first place.”
- Past Participle: “She placed the cooked chicken on the table”; “He put the cut flowers in a vase.”
Participles can also be used with helping verbs to form different tenses, as we learned while discussing complex verb tenses. When the present participle is used with the helping verb to be , it forms the progressive tense. When the past participle is used with the helping verb to have , it forms the perfect tense. For example:
- Present Participle: “ Marta was sleeping “; “Aliyah is singing “; “He will be signing autographs at 3:00.”
- Past Participle: “The chicken has eaten “; “The public had voted him out of office”; “They will have thrown a fit by then.”
Infinitives
To be or not to be, that is the question.
—Hamlet
Infinitives describe the verb form that includes the word “to” before the verb is used—for example, “to be,” “to try,” or “to make.” The infinitive is the basic dictionary form of a verb, usually preceded by to . In other languages, infinitive verbs are often easy to identify because they are a single word, as in morir (“(to) die”) in Spanish, manger (“(to) eat”) in French, or lieben (“(to) love”) in German, etc.
Here are some examples of uses of the infinitive:
- With other verbs: “I aim to convince him of our plan’s ingenuity”; “You already know that he’ll fail to complete the task.”
- As a noun phrase: “ To err is human”; “ To know me is to love me.”
- As a modifier (an adjective or adverb): “The man to save us ”; “Nice to listen to ”; “In order to win .”
- In questions: “I don’t know where to go .”
There are some cases in which the infinitive form of a verb is used without the to preceding it. This is called a bare infinitive . The bare infinitive usually comes when following another verb or certain phrases, such as in these examples: “I will wait “; “I heard him sing a lovely song”; “She can speak five languages”; “I would rather die .” All of these are bare infinitives without the to.
Now that we’ve learned how to use each of the different non-finite verbs, let’s take a look at how they’re used together. The following practice will help you identify each of the types of non-finite verbs and see how they are used together.
Read the following paragraph and see if you can identify the gerunds, participles, and infinitives. Click on the text below to check your answers.
The Australian magpie is a medium-sized black and white bird native to Australia. Feeding magpies is a common practice among households around the country, and there is generally a peaceful co-existence. However, in the spring a small minority of breeding magpies (almost always males) becomes aggressive and swoop and attack passersby. If someone is on a bike, being unexpectedly swooped can result in loss of control of the bicycle, which may cause injury. Attaching a long pole with a flag to the bike can deter attack. Using cable ties on helmets has become common, as well, and it appears to be an effective deterrent.
[reveal-answer q=”306830″]Show Gerunds[/reveal-answer]
[hidden-answer a=”306830″]Here is the passage with all the gerunds in bold:
The Australian magpie is a medium-sized black and white bird native to Australia. Feeding magpies is a common practice among households around the country, and there is generally a peaceful co-existence. However, in the spring a small minority of breeding magpies (almost always males) becomes aggressive and swoop and attack passersby. If someone is on a bike, being unexpectedly swooped can result in loss of control, which may cause injury. Attaching a long pole with a flag to a bike can deter attack. Using cable ties on helmets has become common as well, and it appears to be an effective deterrent.
- Feeding magpies is the subject of this sentence.
- Being unexpectedly swooped is the subject of this sentence.
- Attaching a long pole is the subject of this sentence.
- Using cable ties is the subject of this sentence.
[/hidden-answer]
[reveal-answer q=”306880″]Show Participles[/reveal-answer]
[hidden-answer a=”306880″]Here is the passage with all the participles bolded. Past particles have also been italicized.
The Australian magpie is a medium-sized black and white bird native to Australia. Feeding magpies is a common practice among households around the country, and there is generally a peaceful co-existence. However, in the spring a small minority of breeding magpies (almost always males) becomes aggressive and swoop and attack passersby. If someone is on a bike, being unexpectedly swooped can result in loss of control, which may cause injury. Attaching a long pole with a flag to a bike can deter attack. Using cable ties on helmets has become common as well, and it appears to be an effective deterrent.
- Breeding is a present participle serving as an adjective. It modifies the noun magpies .
- Swooped is a past participle. It works with the gerund being as a part of the subject of the sentence: Being unexpectedly swooped while cycling .  Feeding magpies is a common practice among households around the country, and there is generally a peaceful co-existence. However, in the spring a small minority of breeding magpies (almost always males) becomes aggressive and swoop and attack passersby. If someone is on a bike, being unexpectedly swooped can result in loss of control, which may cause injury. Attaching a long pole with a flag to a bike can deter attack. Using cable ties on helmets has become common as well, and it appears to be an effective deterrent.
- Result is the bare infinitive. It works with the verb can . Can indicates a possibility in this sentence.
- Cause is the bare infinitive. It works with the verb may . May indicates a possibility in this sentence.
- Deter is the bare infinitive. It works with the verb can . Can indicates a possibility in this sentence.
- To be is the to -infinitive. It works with the verb appears .
[/hidden-answer]
Contributors and Attributions
- Revision and Adaptation of Wikipedia Content. Provided by : Lumen Learning. License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
- Practice Exercises. Provided by : Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution
- Nonfinite verb. Provided by : Wikipedia. Located at : https://en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonfinite_verb . License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
- Gerund. Provided by : Wikipedia. Located at : https://en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerund . License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
- Participle. Provided by : Wikipedia. Located at : https://en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Participle . License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
- Infinitive. Provided by : Wikipedia. Located at : https://en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinitive . License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
- Modification of Australian magpie. Provided by : Wikipedia. Located at : https://en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_magpie . License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
- Image of the past, present, future icon. Authored by : jwinrott. Provided by : Pixabay. Located at : pixabay.com/illustrations/recycle-past-present-future-2327550/. License : Other . License Terms : pixabay.com/service/terms/#license
- Finite verb. Provided by : Wikipedia. Located at : en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Finite_verb. License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike