Student Ratings of a Male and Female Professors’ Lecture on Sex Discrimination in the Workforce

Using an experimental design, male (n = 41) and female (n = 46) undergraduate students in the southeastern USA evaluated an identical written lecture by a male and female professor on pay disparities between men and women in the workforce suggesting sex discrimination. Regardless of the students’ sex, the male professor and his lecture was rated more positively and less sexist than the female professor. Moderated multiple regression analysis indicated that more traditional and gender stereotypical attitudes toward women in male students were related to greater sexism ratings of the female professor compared to the male professor whereas; no differences on ratings of sexism between the male and female professor were found for male students with more liberal attitudes.     

He's a Laker; She's a “Looker”: The Consequences of Gender-Stereotypical Portrayals of Male and Female Athletes by the Print Media

Although an extensive qualitative literature shows that coverage of women's sport often focuses on female athletes' attractiveness (to the exclusion of their athleticism), there is a dearth of quantitative research examining exactly what effect this coverage has on people's perceptions of athletes. As part of a 2 (Gender of the Athlete: Female or Male) × 2 (Gender of the Participant: Female or Male) × 2 (Focus of the Article: Physical Attractiveness or Athleticism) between-subjects design, 92 predominantly White undergraduates (40 men, 52 women) read a fictitious newspaper profile about an Olympic athlete in which the article focused on the athlete's attractiveness (as coverage of female athletes often does) or on the athlete's athleticism (as coverage of male athletes often does). Interestingly, participants neither had favorable impressions of nor liked articles about female and male athletes when attractiveness was the main focus of an article. These findings suggest that the media should be cognizant of the harmful and erroneous impressions that can result from portraying athletes in terms of their personal attributes rather than their athletic accomplishments.     

Perceived Control’s Influence on Wellbeing in Residential Care Versus Community Dwelling Older Adults

As people age and their control capacity presumably declines, it is argued that the influence of acceptance (or secondary perceived control) increases to help maintain normative levels of wellbeing. While previous studies have typically investigated the relationship between perceived control and global estimates of life satisfaction in community samples, the present study compared the link between perceived control and eight key domains of satisfaction in 101 older adults (65+ years) living in the community and 101 older adults (65+ years) living in residential aged-care. The findings supported the theory that stability in satisfaction and primary perceived control may, in part, be facilitated by a growing acceptance of what cannot be changed. Despite assumptions that old age is associated with lower primary control, particularly when living in an aged-care facility, the data did not indicate that primary perceived control was suppressed as a result of living in residential age-care. The results did indicate, however, that primary and secondary perceived control may predict satisfaction with comparable strength under low-control conditions, and that acceptance takes more of a prime position in low control situations in later life.     

Having “The Talk”: Individual,Family, and Partner Factors on Unprotected Sex among Female Adolescent Offenders

This study assessed the influence of individual age and substance use, family support and communication, and partner support and communication on the frequency of unprotected sex among incarcerated adolescent females. Subjects (n = 273) completed a survey on psychosocial correlates and risk behaviors for sexually transmitted infections (STI). Communication with male partners and sex while under the influence have a significant impact on condom use. Findings highlight the necessity of providing assertive communication skills training and increasing self-efficacy as STI/HIV prevention components for adolescent females thus empowering their decision-making processes.     

The Powerful Male Hero: A Content Analysis of Gender Representation in Posters for Children’s Animated Movies

Findings across a wide body of research suggest that media targeted at young audiences often portray characters according to stereotypical gender roles. Childhood is a particularly sensitive time in gender identity development, and logic from social cognitive theory suggests that repeatedly observing these stereotypes can have a lasting influence on young audiences’ worldview. Building on previous research investigating gender role displays in film content, and with the expectation that content creators use movie posters to convey a one-shot summary of films to audiences, we conducted a content analysis on the gendered power depictions of the main characters in movie posters of 152 popular U.S. animated children’s feature films produced over the last 80 years. Findings revealed that main characters were more likely to be male and that males were portrayed as more powerful. These results add to a growing, yet substantial, body of research illustrating the prevalence of stereotypical gender role portrayals across virtually every popular medium with which children come into contact. We discuss our results’ implications for potential short-term and long-term effects of exposure to films’ gender role stereotypes on young viewers’ real-life gender role expectations.

     

Gender Differences in Children’s Hero Attributions: Personal Hero Choices and Evaluations of Typical Male and Female Heroes

The current study investigated gender differences in the personal hero choices, hero attributions, and characteristics attributed to “typical” male and female heroes of children living in the Midwestern United States (N = 103; mean age = 10 years). Questionnaires were completed in a school setting. The majority of girls chose heroes personally known to them; boys chose personal and public figures equally often. Most boys chose same gender heroes; girls’ nominations were mixed. Gender differences were also seen in the characteristics children attributed to their own heroes and in their conceptions of “typical” male and female heroes. Children rated same-gender “typical” heroes more positively on many attributes, except for stereotypically masculine characteristics. Gender socialization, stereotypes, and in-group favoritism were used to explain these findings. Portions of this project were presented at the 2003 Society for Research on Child Development Biennial Meeting. We wish to thank Anna V. Persson and Sara E. Goldstein for their assistance on the early development of this study. We also appreciate the children, teachers, guidance counselors and principals at Leipsic Local School and Pandora-Gilboa Elementary School for making this study possible. Inquiries about this study should be addressed to Shayla Holub, .     

Looking Good Versus Feeling Good: An Investigation of Media Frames of Health Advice and Their Effects on Women’s Body-related Self-perceptions

The present research had two goals: (1) to document how health advice is framed on the covers of women’s health magazines, and (2) to investigate whether exposure to appearance frames (i.e., do something in order to look better) affected women’s body-related self-perceptions compared to health frames (i.e., to do something in order to feel better). Study 1, a content analysis of 426 cover headlines on the five highest-circulating women’s health magazines in the United States, revealed that appearance frames were just as prevalent as health frames. Study 2, an experiment conducted on 103 U.S. undergraduate women, showed that those assigned to appearance frames reported more body shame and appearance-related motivation to exercise than women assigned to health frames.     

“What’s your definition of dirty,baby?”: Sex in music video

As sexuality in music video becomes more intense and more frequent, it requires more attention by scholars. This essay summarizes the findings of two decades’ worth of research on music video, most of which focuses on sexual and violent content in the videos. In addition, we suggest a typology of how sexuality is indicated and used by artists—especially female artists—to define their images and attract audiences.     

“Clean and Fresh”: Understanding Women’s use of Vaginal Hygiene Products

We explore Canadian women’s use of vaginal hygiene products including feminine washes, douches, sprays, deodorants, wipes, and powders. Vaginal hygiene products in North America are part of a two billion dollar industry, which focuses on cleanliness and freshness in their advertising toward women. In interviewing women who were currently using or had previously used vaginal hygiene products, we found that vaginal cleanliness and freshness were also frequently brought up as reasons for using these products. Using an inductive thematic analysis informed by Braun and Clarke (2013) we explore how attaining a clean-and-fresh vagina has become a subjective physical need for the participants in our study. In a society where female genitalia are constructed as unclean, we argue the marketing of vaginal hygiene products contributes to the problematization of women’s genitalia by suggesting women need to use these products to attain an ideal (i.e., clean and fresh) vagina. The reliance on vaginal hygiene products reported by participants in attaining sensations of vaginal cleanliness and freshness raises concerns in the context of medical literature suggesting adverse health risks that may result from using some of these products. Potential risks include bacterial vaginosis, pelvic inflammatory disease, and a higher susceptibility to sexually transmitted infections, among others. We believe that companies that advertise these products as beneficial for vaginal health and hygiene can be perceived as not just misinforming women but also profiting from products that are harmful.     

What to Do in an Unjust State?: On Confucius’s and Socrates’s Views on Political Duty

Confucius argued for the centrality of the superior man’s political duty to his fellow human beings and to the state, while Socrates suggested that the superior man (the philosopher) may have no such political duty. However, Confucius also suggested that one not enter or stay—let alone save—a troubled state, while Socrates stayed in an unjust state, apparently fulfilling his political duty to the state by accepting an unjust verdict. In this essay, I will try to show how Confucius could solve these apparent contradictions. I will then examine the reasons Socrates directly and indirectly offers to resolve his seemingly conflicting positions in light of the discussion of the Confucian case. This article is a first step toward a deeper understanding of both Confucius and Socrates (Plato) by way of comparative studies, and of the general issue of a superior man’s political duty to a bad state.     

Perceptions of Female and Male Managers in the 1990s: Plus ça change . . .

Sex Roles - Despite an increase in the number of womenmanagers, women frequently have difficulty advancing toupper levels of management. Researchers such as V . E.Schein [(1973), “The...     

Differential Effects of Mother’s and Father’s Parenting on Prosocial and Antisocial Behavior: Child Sex Moderating

The current study examined the differential effects of maternal and paternal parenting on prosocial and antisocial behavior during middle childhood, and the moderating role of child sex. Parents of 96 boys and 107 girls (mean age?=?92.42?months, SD?=?3.52) completed different questionnaires to assess parenting and child behavior. All participants were Caucasian from south of Spain. Multiple hierarchical regressions (enter method) were performed to determine significant predictors of prosocial and antisocial behavior. The results showed that maternal and paternal hostility predicted an increase of externalizing problems in boys and girls (p?<?.001 in both sex groups). As well, Warmth/Induction of both parents predicted an increase in adaptive skills in boys and girls (p?<?.001 in both sex groups). On the other hand, differential effects of fathers’ and mothers’ parenting were found: both for boys and girls, maternal inconsistency positively predicted externalizing problems and negatively adaptive skills (p?<?.001 in both sex groups) and paternal overprotection positively predicted externalizing problems and negatively adaptive skills (p?<?.05 in both sex groups). Finally, maternal coercion negatively predicted adaptive skills in boys and girls (p?<?.05 in both sex groups); however, it increased externalizing problems only in girls (p?<?.05), whereas maternal permissiveness only increased these problems in boys (p?<?.01 in both cases). The discussion highlighted the importance of considering both parents’ and children’s sex to further knowledge of parenting styles affecting children’s behaviors.     

The Duty of Memory Revisited: Ricoeur’s Contribution to a Crisis in French Historiography

The relationship between memory and history, which has preoccupied historiography and the philosophy of history since the middle of the nineteenth century, took a particular course in France at the end of the millennium. The forms this relationship took in this particular context have been the subject of heated debate around whether the reconstruction of the past should bear the sign of a moral imperative or, on the contrary, it should be kept away from any moral conditioning. To address this question and underline its particular relevance to the present, I will revisit a significant debate, based around Paul Ricoeur’s interpretation of the duty of memory developed in his book Memory, History, Forgetting. I will do this by means of a three-step approach. First, a short introduction will provide several guidelines for understanding the issues at stake in the debate in which Ricoeur was caught and explanations regarding the significance of the main notions around which the discussions took place, i.e., the duty and work of memory. Second, I will identify how historical debates, political decisions and civic concerns about the past gradually coagulated into two different “camps” in France during the 1980s and 1990s, i.e., the advocates of memory against those of history, foreshadowing the emergence of a historiographical crisis, the stakes of which I will analyse in detail. Finally, I will show how Ricoeur’s solution to this debate, i.e., an incomplete dialectic between the duty and the work of memory, developed on the horizon of justice, continues to have relevance for the present, being an innovative form of “defatalizing” the past.

     

Allies Against Sexism: The Impact of Men’s Egalitarian Versus Paternalistic Confrontation on Women’s Empowerment and Well-Being

Sex Roles - Men as advantaged group members can be involved in actions against inequality. But how do women experience men’s confrontation of sexism? We examine how women perceive men’s...     

Pushing Up on the Glass Ceiling of Female Muscularity: Women’s Bodybuilding as Edgework

Women bodybuilders exemplify gendered deviance and risk a social stigma on top of the physical risk of partaking in this demanding sport. In the current study, we utilize Stephen Lyng’s (1990, 2005) theoretical concept of “edgework” to understand what motivates women bodybuilders to engage in this high-risk behavior. Our qualitative analysis of 29 women bodybuilders' responses to open-ended survey questions reveals that the three components of edgework (activity, skill, and sensation) are evident in their training and dietary regimens. Overall, this study offers an important theoretical contribution to the study of women’s bodybuilding while also extending Lyng’s edgework model to this understudied phenomenon.     

Maneuvers in the Depths: The Politics of Identity in Anton Boisen’s Pastoral Care

This article examines Anton Boisen’s political negotiations within the identity categories of ministry and madness in the aftermath of his own repeated episodes of psychosis. In conversation with contemporary queer theorists Judith Butler, José Esteban Muñoz, and Lee Edelman, the article characterizes Boisen’s negotiations between dominant and marginalized identity spheres as a political performance of disidentification in which a subject moves and negotiates between disempowered and hegemonic social spheres, simultaneously displacing but also, as Boisen’s example demonstrates, reifying the norms of the latter. The article illustrates how Boisen sought to change many of the practices of pastoral care for those consigned to madness, while at the same time his actions also reestablished the very boundaries and exclusions he sought to displace.     

Vicarious Resilience: An Exploration of Teachers and Children’s Resilience in Highly Challenging Social Contexts

This study explores the formulation of vicarious resilience as a useful concept in the middle school age school educational arena. It addresses the question of how teachers who work with learners who experienced dislocation and adversity are affected by the children’s stories of resilience. It focuses on the teachers’ interpretations of their learners’ stories, and how they make sense of the impact these stories have had on their lives. Twenty-one teachers who work in accelerated learning programs in Cali, Colombia, were interviewed about their perceptions of their learners’ overcoming of adversity. Data were analyzed through the Consensual Qualitative Research (CQR) methodology to describe the themes that speak about the effects of witnessing how learners coped constructively with adversity. These themes are discussed to advance the concept of vicarious resilience and how it can contribute to sustaining and empowering teachers dealing with challenging children and trauma.     

“A Father’s Touch:” Negotiating Masculinity and Sexual Subjectivity in Child Care

This essay explores changing attitudes towards male caregivers in postwar America to understand conceptions of prepubescent gender and sexuality. While the 1950s have been viewed as a period of rigid gender conventions, the demands of a baby boom generation allowed men unexpected roles as caregivers. In the 1960s and 1970s, challenges to the status quo along with fears of female-headed households encouraged men to move into the field of child care, but this was particularly short lived. Political backlash and a failing economy turned male daycare workers into suspects, revealing the ambiguity that so often distorts children’s interactions with men.