A recently released study, “Science Faculty’s Subtle Gender Biases Favor Male Students,” shows compelling evidence for unconscious gender bias among faculty, specifically in some natural and biological science fields. The researchers asked a national sample of 127 biology, physics and chemistry professors to evaluate the application materials of an undergrad science student who applied for […]
Author: Gwen Sharp
Is This the Best Way to Encourage Young Women into Science?
The video “Science: It’s a Girl Thing!” is meant to encourage girls to consider careers in the natural and physical sciences, presenting science, as the title suggests, as an area compatible with femininity and other “girl things”—make-up, high heels and fashion. http://youtu.be/g032MPrSjFA The video, produced by the European Commission, has been roundly criticized (check out […]
No Comment: Boys Want Success, Girls Want Boys
A new Acuvue contact lens commercial aimed at teens reinforces both gender and racial stereotypes.
Do Restrictive Abortion Laws Actually Reduce Abortion Rates?
The Lancet has just study on global trends in abortion, focusing on overall rates, access to safe vs. unsafe abortions, and how the legal status of abortion impacts abortion rates. The results shed some interesting light on the effects of efforts to reduce abortion by outlawing or restricting access to it.
Marketing by Masculinizing the Feminine
Another roundup of brands that are masculinizing the feminine, including unnecessarily gendered candles, nail polish, paint, and more.
Gender and Race Determine the Worth of Your Degree
Researchers at Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce have compiled a new report on how education affects people’s earnings, based on 2007-2009 American Community Survey data. Not surprisingly, higher education significantly increases lifetime earnings of U.S. workers: But education doesn’t pay off equally for all groups. Women make less at every level of […]
Gender Differences in Work Commutes
Kelly V. suggested that I check out the book Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says about Us), by Tom Vanderbilt. The book is fascinating, covering everything from individual-level psychological and perceptual factors that affect our driving to system-level issues like why building additional roads often simply creates more traffic rather […]
No Comment: A Big Fat Sexist Welcome from LSU!
How about some school pride at the expense of women? Here’s a banner that is currently on display at an apartment complex near Louisiana State University (LSU), presenting two supposed LSU fans and one University of Alabama fan in anticipation of a recent football game between the two rival teams. As my LSU friend (who […]
No Comment: Opposing Domestic Violence With Homophobia
Someone recently sent me an article at Comment Dit-On? about a new anti-domestic violence ad in Chile that tells men not to hit women by using openly homophobic language—specifically saying that a man who hits a woman is a maricón, the equivalent of “faggot.” Translation of the main text: “A faggot is one who hurts […]