The wage gap between the sexes in America has been narrowing much faster than observers ever realized, although this revelation by a pair of University of Georgia researchers isn’t as good a tiding as it could be. Jeremy Reynolds and Jeffrey Wenger, who have stumbled upon a quirk in existing survey data that could also color how we measure all types of other sociological trends, say statisticians have been as much as 50 percent off in tracking the progress of women’s wages in the work force. “But that’s only because things were worse in the past than we had realized,” Reynolds ... Read More
Pop Charts Still Dominated by Men
December 14, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
In 1997, Rolling Stone magazine famously celebrated the rise of the female pop star, boldly declaring that “Women are ruling the roost.” It took less than a decade for that dominance to decisively shift back to men. That’s the key finding of a newly published study, which concludes that “gender inequality continues to characterize the world of popular music.” A Canadian research team led by Concordia University sociologist Marc Lafrance reports male artists continue to dominate the Top 40 sales charts, and the gender gap is even wider in terms of airplay. Lafrance and his ... Read More
Law of the Jungle: Powerful Men Have More Children
August 25, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
Two generations after the beginning of the feminist revolution, men still dominate positions of power in the United States. Why are men still over-represented in corporate board rooms, halls of government, and other places where decisions are made? One reason might be that men are evolutionarily programmed to seek positions of high status, as a means of upping their reproductive output. In the podcast, Christopher von Rueden, an anthropologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, talks about his research into the connections between status and reproduction among the Tsimane, an ... Read More
Would Debt-Ceiling Circus Occur With Women in Charge?
August 3, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
Congress did finally pass a deal to raise the debt ceiling in the 11th hour (or just 12 hours before default). But no one seems to be cheering the resolution for this reason: The unsightly process that got Congress to this point has revealed an institution so dysfunctional just 2 percent of Americans have anything nice to say about its recent behavior. Democrats, Republicans and Independents alike have instead overwhelmingly summed up the debt-ceiling debate in a new Pew survey with bitter words like "ridiculous," "disgusting," "stupid" and "childish." On the website of Foreign Policy ... Read More
Making Science Girl-Friendly Pays Gender Dividends
July 14, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
If you want to interest girls in science, show how it will help them investigate stereotypically feminine concerns like caring for their skin and hair, says a just-published study in the British Journal of Educational Psychology. After examining a wide array of science textbooks, University of Luxembourg educational researcher Sylvie Kerger concluded that most present real-world examples are "embedded in masculine contexts." But wrapping scientific subjects — at least initially — around female-friendly topics could kindle interest in scientific fields under-populated by women, Kerger ... Read More
On ‘Jeopardy!’ Women Take Fewer Risks vs. Men
June 2, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
The answer is: It’s a game show that provides surprising clues about sex, social rules and risk-taking. And the question is: What is Jeopardy!? Two Swedish researchers, writing in the journal Economics Letters, report an intriguing pattern of behavior by contestants on the popular quiz program. Women, it seems, take fewer risks when their Jeopardy! opponents are men. Gabriella Sjogren Lindquist and Jenny Save-Soderbergh of the Swedish Institute for Social Research looked at 206 episodes of Jeopardy!, focusing on those moments when one of the three contestants must decide how much to ... Read More
Military Gender Roles Still Thorny Problem
April 11, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
Gray skies covered the cluster of gray stone buildings and perfectly manicured fields at the United States Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. last Friday as a group of about 50 students — cadets and midshipmen from all the U.S. service academies, as well as some students from other universities — gathered inside the brightly lit main library for an earnest discussion on gender issues in the U.S. armed forces. Speakers at the two-day Gender Justice conference — hosted by the West Point Center for the Rule of Law — tackled a tight range of sober topics, and the Friday morning ... Read More
Real Men Do Apologize
September 23, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
Men, according to conventional wisdom, are stubbornly unwilling to apologize. Countless pop psychology books have referenced this reluctance, explaining that our egos are too fragile to admit we’re wrong, or we’re oblivious to important nuances of social interaction. Sorry to disrupt that lovely feeling of superiority, ladies, but newly published research suggests such smug explanations miss the mark. Writing in the journal Psychological Science, University of Waterloo psychologists Karina Schumann and Michael Ross report that men are, indeed, less likely to say “I’m sorry.” But ... Read More
The Picture for Men: Superhero or Slacker
August 17, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
At the end of the fourth season of the critically loved and chronically underwatched Friday Night Lights, the former football star Tim Riggins martyrs himself for the sake of his brother and newborn nephew. For much of the season, he and his brother Billy have been stripping down stolen cars and making the type of fast cash they cannot make legitimately. Tim wants the quick cash to fund his desire to buy a bit of sun-drenched Texas countryside, and Billy needs it for his new duties as a father. As the season finale starts, the brothers are talking to a lawyer and working through their ... Read More
Putting the MEN in Menu
July 7, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
We all know that real men don’t eat quiche. But their antipathy for the inoffensive egg dish has more to do with symbolism than taste or texture. As a recent article on Salon.com points out, many food items are associated with one gender or the other. While hormones may play a role in some choices, the fact these preferences differ from one culture to another suggests the phenomenon is mainly a matter of socialization. Boys learn at an early age that certain foods (red meat, beer) are associated with masculinity, while others (fish, vegetables, yogurt) are considered feminine. Eating ... Read More
