Maintaining the Double Standard: Portrayals of Age and Gender in Popular Films

An analysis of the top 100 domestic grossing films of 2002 found evidence of a lingering double standard for aging female and male characters. Overall, major male characters outnumbered major female characters (73% vs. 27%); the majority of male characters were in their 30s and 40s, and the majority of female characters were in their 20s and 30s. Both women and men in their 60s and older were dramatically underrepresented compared to their representation in the US population. For male characters, leadership and occupational power increased with age. Men in their 40s, 50s, and 60s were more likely to play leadership roles and wield occupational power than were their female counterparts. As female characters aged, they were less likely to have goals.     

Tomboyism or Lesbianism? Beyond Sex/Gender/Sexual Conflation

To illuminate questions of sex/gender/sexual conflation the researcher focused on the relationship between reported tomboyism and lesbianism. Narratives of childhood and adolescence were collected from 32 women who were grouped into four gender/sexual status combinations: “lesbian/bisexual butch,” “straight butch,” “lesbian/bisexual femme,” and “straight femme.” The effects of participants’ sexual and gendered statuses on their retrospective accounts of two aspects of tomboyism—“choosing masculinity” and “rejecting femininity”—were examined. Chi square and qualitative analyses suggest that stage in the life cycle, gender, and sexual status influence distinct mergings and separations of sex, gender, and sexuality in women’s retrospective reports. The researcher concludes that attention to sex, gender, and sexuality as both distinct and connected clarifies the relationship between tomboyism and lesbianism.Part of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association in Atlanta, Georgia in 2003. Interview data for this study were originally collected for an unpublished dissertation (Carr, 2002).     

People's Perceptions of Women's and Men's Worry about Life Issues: Worrying about Love, Accomplishment, or Money?

The study was designed to examine people's perceptions of women's and men's worry about life issues and self-perceptions of worry. Some undergraduates (n = 498) rated typical women's or men's worry, and others (n = 396) rated significant others' worry based on the Worry Domain Questionnaire (Tallis, Eysenck, & Mathews, 1992). As expected, participants perceived women as worrying more than men do about relationships, when they rated typical or significant others. As well, they rated typical men as worrying more than typical women about achievement and finances. Participants who rated significant others' worry also rated their own worry and parallel findings were expected. However, women tended to report more worry about achievement than men did. Overall, the findings indicate that the better people know their targets, the less likely they are to perceive their worry in gender stereotypical terms. This article is partially based on Wendy-Jo Wood's Master's thesis.     

论医生的双重角色及其激励相容

在医患关系中,医生充当着双重角色,不仅作为患者的代理人或顾问为患者利益着想,同时也作为医疗服务的提供者为自己的利益着想。在这种双重角色下极易发生供者诱导需求,并进而导致过度医疗与医疗费用的上升。因此,有必要在支付机制、成本费用约束和外在监督等方面实现对医生的激励相容,以规范医疗行为,切实降低医疗费用。     

利益相关者分析方法在卫生政策改革中的应用

利益相关者分析作为一种新的方法,已经广泛应用于西方国家的企业管理与卫生政策改革研究和实践中,并取得初步成效,但在我国尚未得到应有的重视.在介绍该方法的基础上,结合我国卫生改革的实际,对利益相关者分析方法在我国卫生政策改革中的应用问题进行了初步的探讨,力图为正处于转型时期的我国卫生改革政策的制定与实施提供新的视角.     

The intention to commit driving violations – A qualitative study

This study was designed to carry out an in-depth exploration of an extended version of the Theory of Planned Behaviour. Fifty licensed drivers took part in the study and each one was given three different driving scenarios; speeding in an urban area, dangerous overtaking and speeding on a major road. The results indicated that drivers usually find speeding acceptable although this was also related to a context, since speeding on a major road was more acceptable than on a minor one. The immediate response to the question about consequences of the act varied and depended on the perception of the situation. In a serious situation the response was purely affective and immediate whereas in a low risk situation it was more considered. The response to the question about subjective norm was sometimes difficult to answer or misunderstood which throws some light on its weak association with intention. Driving skills were explored in some detail together with its possible link to perceived behavioural control. In general those participants who believed themselves to be superior to others, expressed high degrees of control. The study also found that a low degree of perceived behavioural control (external or internal) could be used as a form of justification for carrying out an act although this only applied to a situation which they perceived as low risk. In a high-risk situation they always tried to maintain their own control. Habit, or rather past behaviour, influenced future behaviour when the experience had been positive. The police, or feelings of regret, could break this pattern. The implications of these findings in relation to theoretical and practical issues are discussed.     

School Subjects as Social Categorisations

The present study set out to examine school subjects in terms of social categorisations of a child’s educability. A group of academically educated (N = 180) and vocationally educated parents (N = 249) with a child in the third grade of comprehensive school were asked to indicate their child’s strongest and weakest school subject and to give reasons for their choices. The parents’ most frequent choices for both the strongest and the weakest subject turned out to be mathematics and Finnish, which substantiates the pivotal role of the cognitive-verbal competencies in defining the child’s educability. The choices were guided by the child’s gender, so that mathematics was typically regarded as the strongest subject of boys and the weakest subject of girls and conversely, Finnish was regarded as the strongest subject of girls and the weakest subject of boys. The parent’s educational position organised the reasons given for the subject choices so that self-serving attribution was stronger among the academically educated than the vocationally educated parents, suggesting that the parents’ education relates to the trust they place on their child’s educational potential.     

Gender Group Differences in Coping with Chronic Terror: The Israeli Scene

Gender group differences in terror–stress, cognitive appraisals, ways of coping with terror, and stress reactions were explored in a sample of Israeli adults following prolonged exposure to political violence. Data were gathered at the height of the Al-Aqsa Intifada uprising (May/July 2002) from a sample of 707 adult participants (60% women and 40% men) residing in Haifa and northern Israel. Israeli women reported that they were more distressed by political violence than the men did, and they also appraised the crisis situation as more threatening and less manageable. Women reported using more problem-focused as well as emotion-focused coping than men did; both men and women used a mixture of coping strategies. Compared to men, women reported that they experienced more somatic symptoms and more frequent posttraumatic stress symptoms than men did. Negative affectivity was found to mediate gender differences in appraisals, coping, and outcomes. Overall, the nexus of relations among key variables was found to be highly similar for men and women. These data suggest that women may be more reactive to chronic political violence situations than men are. The data are discussed and explicated in the context of stress and coping theory and prior research on political violence and community disasters.     

Gender Attitudes Mediate Gender Differences in Attitudes Toward Adoption in Guatemala

Gender differences in gender role attitudes, including machismo, and attitudes toward adoption were studied in Guatemala, a country that provides a large number of children for international adoption. Guatemalan university students (N = 152) completed the machismo subscale of the Multiphasic Assessment of Cultural Constructs–short form (Cuéllar, Arnold, & González, 1995), the attitudes toward women scale for adolescents (Galambos, Peterson, Richards, & Gitelson, 1985), and an adoption beliefs scale developed for the present study. Men endorsed more machismo, more traditional gender role attitudes, and held less favorable attitudes toward adoption than women did. Gender differences in adoption attitudes were mediated by machismo and gender role attitudes. These results suggest that machismo and traditional gender role attitudes may serve as barriers in the promotion of intra-country adoption.     

The Role of Maternal Employment, Role-Altering Strategies, and Gender in College Students’ Expectations of Work–Family Conflict

We examined the relationship between maternal employment and college students’ expected work–family conflict as well as the relationship between expected conflict and the anticipated use of family-altering and career-altering strategies. Results indicated a positive relationship between the extensiveness of maternal employment and expected work–family conflict only for men. In addition, students who expected extensive work–family conflict anticipated delaying marriage, limiting the number of children they will have, and, in the case of men, intending not to have children. There was no relationship between expected work–family conflict and the anticipated use of career-altering strategies. Implications of the findings and directions for future research are discussed.