Tag: women

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This week in workplace discrimination

Fifteen percent of U.S. working women say they have at some point felt passed over for a promotion or opportunity at work because of their gender, while 85% say they have never felt that way, according to a Gallup report released today.

“These perceptions are similar by age, educational attainment, and employment in a professional or non-professional job.

“Republican women and conservative women are slightly less likely than all other groups of women to feel they

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have been passed over for a promotion due to their gender. They are also less likely to have felt gender discrimination in obtaining raises. Liberal women are the only group to perceive more gender discrimination in both promotions and raises than their demographic or socioeconomic counterparts. Together, these findings reveal that there may be some political or ideological issues at play in perceptions of gender fairness in the workplace.

“Thirteen percent of U.S. working women say they feel they have been denied a raise due to their gender. But again, the vast majority of working women do not see this as an issue.

“These data, from Gallup’s annual Work and Education survey, conducted Aug. 7-11, 2013, highlight workplace gender issues that have been feverishly debated recently — especially in the media. However, the data reveal that most women do not perceive that they have been a victim of gender bias at work when it comes to promotions and raises in particular.

“When Gallup asked working men the same questions, they were much less likely to say they felt they were denied a promotion or raise because of their gender. Eight percent of working men feel their gender has prevented them from getting a promotion and 4% believe they have been denied a raise for the same reason. Thus, this phenomenon is something that disproportionately affects women. Continue reading “This week in workplace discrimination”

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Gender inequality in movie acting

While it’s not surprising that women in the entertainment industry earn less than their male counterparts, the extent of that gender pay gap is extraordinary given that the combined earnings of this year’s top actors is up more than 15% since 2009, and at its highest level in five years.imgres

This year’s Forbes’ list of Hollywood’s Highest-Paid Actors banked a collective $465 million, almost two and a half times more than what the top-paid actresses brought in. As Forbes reports: “With an estimated $75 million in earnings, Robert Downey, Jr. landed the #1 spot with a paycheck $10 million larger than the combined earnings of the five women who rounded out the top Actress’ list. By comparison, the two actors who rounded out the Actors list, Denzel Washington and Liam Neeson, each collected $33 million – the same figure that propelled Angelina Jolie to the top spot for actresses.

“Forbes’ list of Hollywood’s Highest-Paid Actresses is led by Angelina Jolie earning an astounding $33 million — and the #1 spot — thanks in large part to her upcoming role in Disney’s“Maleficent,” set to be released next summer. Big-budget films also helped to land starlets Jennifer Lawrence ($24 million) and Kristen Stewart ($22 million) into the top three, with Hollywood royalty such as Jennifer Aniston ($20 million), Sandra Bullock ($14 million), Charlize Theron ($15 million), and Julia Roberts ($11 million) all making the top 10.

“This type of earnings difference may not be unique to Hollywood, but comparing Tinseltown’s top-paid talent underscores just how acute and pervasive gender inequities are in show business. What are the driving forces behind this pay gap? First and foremost, roles for women continue to remain scare, particularly in an industry where far too often talent remains defined by youthful good looks rather than acting ability. The majority of gigs are limited to secondary parts or indie films versus the big blockbusters or franchises that generate the kinds of exorbitant paychecks that landed many of this year’s leading men into the top 10. Continue reading “Gender inequality in movie acting”

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Gender and car shopping

Women are more likely to prioritize safety and affordability in shopping for cars, while men appear to seek out cars based on exterior styling and “rugged” reputations. From the ground-zero of car culture, the LA Times reports:imgres-1

 “Like comparing apples to oranges, men and women have different factors of importance when choosing a vehicle, influencing their brand research based on qualities that matter the most to them,” said market intelligence manager Diana Duque-Miranda. She noted older men typically gravitated toward “heritage” brands they grew up with – Lincoln, for example, and Buick.

“Search data showed 76% of women in the study sought out safety features in their next new car purchase, compared with 61%. That surprised Arthur Henry, another Kelly Blue Book manager. “When I think of solid cars, I also think of safety,” a priority analysts found more often in women’s searches. The survey data showed men tended to gravitate toward models considered “rugged,” Henry said. Twenty-eight percent of men were more likely to shop for such vehicles, compared with 19% of women, he said. Duque-Miranda noted women were more likely to seek out features once considered luxury – such as leather seats, USB ports and parking sensors – that are now becoming standard in lower-priced vehicles.

“Fuel efficiency also ranked high among 67% of women, compared with 48% of men. So how did brands fare in the battle of the sexes? Lincoln, Audi, Jaguar, Scion and Cadillac topped the list of 10 makes most likely to be sought out by men. Women were more likely to browse options from Volvo, Infiniti, Fiat, Acura and Nissan.

More at: http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-gender-differences-car-shopping-20130730,0,7235355.story

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Why women live longer

There are many causes of women’s longevity, some apparently biological (such as their more resilient immune systems) and some more man-made (such as lower rates of accidental, homicidal, or suicidal death).But the overall survival advantage is an outcome of social dynamics. The Atlantic discusses the factors:

“In the United States, women’s advantage in life expectancy at birth is just less than five years, but it was almost eight years in the 1970s. Demographers have determined that the major driver of the 20th century trend was smoking (there is a similar pattern in much of Europe).

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“Smoking is a big issue. More than 80 percent of American men born in 1901 did by the time they were in their thirties, which accounts for the early deaths of millions of men into the 1970s (in the 1950s Americans consumed about 12 pounds of tobacco per person annually, three times current levels). In contrast, young women’s smoking rates never passed 55 percent, and their peak was later, in the 1970s. Since 1965 smoking rates have fallen by more than half, and the gender gap has dropped by more than two-thirds, so women’s survival advantage may narrow further.

“Smoking is a major factor globally, and many countries could be going through what the U.S. did in the last century. The World Health Organization reports that smoking is more common for men than for women in every country except Austria, and in many countries the difference is huge. Continue reading “Why women live longer”

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The Dove “Real Beauty” debate

Dove’s Real Beauty campaign purports to replace idealized (skinny) images of women with more realistic ones, with the tagline.   “You’re more beautiful than you think.”

MS Magazine’s Danielle Nelson analyses what else is going on in the Dove ad video.

“At first glance, this video seemed comforting, almost therapeutic as an antidote against our airbrushed versions of beauty typified by Hollywood and glossy magazine covers. Instead of telling women to lose weight, apply makeup correctly and  dress for our body

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shapes, Dove (which sells skin and hair-care products) reassured us that we are beautiful despite our self-confessed flaws. But there was something deeply distressing about the message behind this Dove ad:

“With soothing music playing in the background, the ad traces various women as they describe themselves to a former forensic artist. From behind the curtain, he sketches, following their lead while also completing a second portrait—one based on how a stranger describes the woman. At the end, the artist unveils the two portraits side-by-side. On the one hand, it is quite moving to see the women tear up as they see that others find them more attractive than they see themselves. What woman doesn’t want to feel empowered and confident in her own skin? But among many other problematic aspects of this ad, Dove wants us to know that being beautiful is still what matters most. And by beautiful, they mean society’s narrowly defined cultural perception of beauty — i.e., white, thin, young, blonde. Continue reading “The Dove “Real Beauty” debate”

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Male and female alcohol recovery differences

Alcohol abuse does its neurological damage more quickly in women than in men, new research reported in Scientific American suggests.

“The finding adds to a growing body of evidence that is prompting researchers to consider whether the time is ripe for single-gender treatment programs for alcohol-dependent women and men.

“Over the past few decades scientists have observed a narrowing of the gender gap in alcohol dependence. In the 1980s the ratio of male to female alcohol dependence stood at roughly five males for every female, according to figures compiled by Shelly Greenfield, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. By 2002 the “dependence difference” had dropped to about 2.5 men for every woman. But although the gender gap in dependence may be closing, differences in the ways men and women respond to alcohol are emerging. Writing in the January 2012 issue ofAlcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, principal investigator Claudia Fahlke from the Department of Psychology at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden and her colleagues found that alcohol’s ability to reduce serotonin neurotransmission, was “telescoped” in alcoholic women compared with their male counterparts. Continue reading “Male and female alcohol recovery differences”

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Humanities career choices and gender

imgresThere’s no shortage of explanations for the so-called crisis in the humanities, and more have come to light since the publication of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ recent “Heart of the Matter” report on the topic. A Recent article in Inside Higher Ed reports on a new study on gender and choices of  courses of study, academic majors, and implicit career aspirations

The finding is  “that the humanities drain is more about women’s equality than a devaluation of the humanities – is gaining particular interest from longtime advocates of the humanities, as well as some criticism.

“Ben Schmidt, a visiting graduate fellow at the Cultural Observatory at Harvard University, argues that the decline in humanities majors since their 1970 peak can be attributed nearly entirely to the changing majors of women.

“Based on data compiled for the academy’s Humanities Indicators Project, he wrote, “I think it’s safe to say that [the] ostensible reason for the long-term collapse in humanities enrollment has to do with the increasing choice of women to enter more pre-professional majors like business, communications, and social work in the aftermath of a) the opening of the workplace and b) universal coeducation suddenly making those degrees relevant.”

“He continued: “You’d have to be pretty tone-deaf to point to their ability to make that choice as a sign of cultural malaise.”

“Looking at the often-cited drop in humanities majors from 14 percent of all degrees granted some 40 years ago to 7 percent today as a whole, commentators such as David Brooks have attributed it to a disconnect with the current pedagogy. Others say that college students are increasingly career-oriented and so are rejecting degrees that don’t promise a job upon graduation.” Continue reading “Humanities career choices and gender”

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The “Tootsie” discussion

A clip of Dustin Huffman’s emotionally charged recounting of a decades-ago epiphany that cross-dressing for his role in ‘Tootsie’ forced him to recognize how men are brainwashed to value women based on their beauty above all else recently inspired rampant, viral support.images

In FBomb Julie Z writes, “Some intrepid voices, however, were thoroughly unimpressed. Mansi Kathuria of Feminspire.com wrote, “Yesterday, I was cat-called on the streets of Chicago three times within a couple of hours, and Hillary Clinton’s new haircut made several news articles. Meanwhile, millions of people continued to share and watch a video of Dustin Hoffman realizing that society has taught him to value women only for their physical appearance.” Tyler Coates of Flavorwire mused, “isn’t there something a little uncomfortable in the notion that it takes being transformed into an unattractive woman to force a man to think, ‘Hey, I want to be taken seriously no matter how I look, too!’”

“These are valid reactions to a video of a very privileged, famous, white man’s discovery of an issue against which plenty of women have spent decades ardently fighting. These are reactions with which I even agree. But, these criticisms, as well as the responses embracing Hoffman as a veritable feminist activist on the basis of a few sentences, miss the bigger picture. This clip provides a model – imperfect though it admittedly is — for how to include men in a discussion about an issue that, though it affects them and requires their involvement to be solved, is currently dominated by women. Furthermore, the fact that this clip went viral indicates that we may actually be ready to embrace such discussions fully. Continue reading “The “Tootsie” discussion”

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On fearing young black men

Racial biases are well documented. With regard to crime, for example, one recent controlled experiment using a video game simulation found that white college students were most likely to accidentally fire at an unarmed suspect who was a black male — and most likely to mistakenly hold fire against armed white females, reports Sociological Images:images-1

“More abstractly, people generally overestimate the risk of criminal victimization they face, but whites are more likely to do so when they live in areas with more black residents.

“The difference in racial attitudes between white men and women are limited. One analysis by prominent experts in racial attitudes concluded that “gender differences in racial attitudes are small, inconsistent, and limited mostly to attitudes on racial policy.” However, some researchers have found white men more prone than women to accept racist stereotypes about blacks, and the General Social Survey in 2002 found that white women were much more likely than men to describe their feelings toward African Americans positively. (In 2012, a minority of both white men and white women voted for Obama, although white men were more overwhelmingly in the Romney camp.)

“What about juries? The evidence for racial bias over many studies is quite strong. For example, one 2012 study found that in two Florida counties having an all-white jury pool – that is, the people from which the jury will be chosen – increased the chance that a black defendant would be convicted. Since the jury pool is randomly selected from eligible citizens, unaltered by lawyers’ selections or disqualifications, the study has a clean test of the race effect. But I can’t find any on the combined influence of race and gender. Continue reading “On fearing young black men”

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Texas men fear tampons

Ok, stop rolling your eyes.

What you are about to read actually happened in the Texas legislature, as posted on the MaddowBlog.

“Inside Texas’ state legislature, loaded guns are fairly common. As the New York Times reported in March, “Just as Texas has long embraced its guns, so has the Capitol. Legislators have walked the terrazzo hallways, attended committee hearings, met with constituents in their offices and voted on the floors of imgrestheir respective chambers while armed with licensed high-powered pistols tucked beneath their suits or slipped into their boots or purses.”

“But as debate begins in the state Senate on sweeping restrictions to reproductive rights,tampons are being confiscated. No, seriously.

Women are being forced to throw out tampons and maxi pads to enter the Senate gallery, which has been confirmed by DPS. […]

However, people with concealed handgun licenses are allowed to bypass long lines to enter the Gallery through the expedited CHL entrance, and per DPS, if a person has a CHL, they can take their gun into the gallery.

“For the record, this is not a joke. I’ve confirmed this with many people in Austin this afternoon. Continue reading “Texas men fear tampons”

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Gender in film study launched

Women account for less than 4 percent of business leaders depicted in movies.

This is one of several statistics from the Geena Davis Institute for Gender and Media, which is partner with the United National on an ambitious global study of gender in media.

images-1As reported in Pravda today, the survey will “analyze the depiction and representation of female characters in family films. \

The Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, with support from The Rockefeller Foundation, has commissioned the study from Associate Professor Stacy Smith of the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California.

“It will examine the top-grossing international movies in Australia, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Russia, Spain and the United Kingdom. It is the first such study ever undertaken.

“There is no doubt that gender stereotypes in the media are influential socio-psychological factors in how women and girls are perceived. They also influence their self-esteem and relationships between the sexes,” said Lakshmi Puri, Acting Head of UN Women. “We cannot let the negative depiction of women and girls erode the hard gains that have been made on gender equality and women’s empowerment. We hope that the study will address factors that positively impact the perception of women in society, positive role models of women and girls and men and boys, and the value of respectful relationships that can foster and benefit from women’s empowerment,” she added.

“While research into the consequences of media exposure is complex, there is a general consensus among health professionals, researchers and educators that high levels of media exposure to negative imagery are related to negative outcomes for children and adults. These outcomes include effects in the areas of academic performance, body image, early sexual behaviour, and social and cultural behaviours and beliefs. These effects may also affect future life and occupational choices for women.

“Previous research by the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media revealed that gender parity still does not exist on-screen. In family films, only 28.3 per cent of all speaking characters were female. This translates into 2.53 males to every one female. Not only are girls and women under-represented on-screen, but many are depicted in a stereotypical and sexualized light. Occupationally, few women held positions of power on screen. Only 3.4 per cent of business leader characters and 4.5 per cent of high-level politicians were female.

“By virtue of the dearth of female characters of substance in the media kids see, we are in effect teaching our children that women and girls don’t take up half of the space in the world. We’re teaching them to see that boys are doing the important and interesting things in society,” said Academy-Award -winner Geena Davis, the leading advocate for positive change in gender portrayals in the entertainment industry. “Media images have an enormous impact on children’s self-esteem and aspirations. This is why we decided to launch a global gender in media study: if girls see it, they can be it.”

 

More at: http://english.pravda.ru/history/03-07-2013/125012-global_gender_in_film-0/

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On asexuality

In 10 years, activist David Jay hopes your kids will be learning about asexuality when they’re getting “the talk.” This week an essay on Huffington Post explores this topic”

“What is ace culture going to look like in a decade? I don’t know,” he said. “Will it look like gay culture? That might happen, but I’m not invested in that. What I am invested in is that as more aces come out, a much larger percentage of the population will have access to the term ‘asexual’ than there is right now. I hope asexuality will be far more visible, with more out aces and asexual characters on TV shows and movies. I hope it becomes a part of the bigger world of sexuality.”imgres

“Mark Carrigan, 27, a PhD student at the University of Warwick who has been studying asexuality for half a decade, concurred. He’s eager to see an increase in asexuality awareness as he believes it will not just benefit the ace community but the world at large.

“More visibility for the asexual community will be very important,” he said. “And that’s not just because it’ll make their lives easier as a stigmatized group, but because there are cultural implications beyond those who are asexual themselves.”Carrigan, who is not himself ace, says he sees many similarities between the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights movement and that of the asexual struggle for broader acceptance, writes todays Huffington Post

“I’d argue that gay pride and the LGBT rights movement was a very civilizing movement,” he said. “It had broader ramifications for the culture we live in, inculcating a greater degree of tolerance and more awareness of sexual difference. Similarly, more awareness for asexuality will likely lead to awareness of a different sort of sexual difference.” Continue reading “On asexuality”

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Women, children, and potatoes

Who knew there was a potato war and that poor kids and their moms were the victims?images-1

According to current numbers, Americans eat (or attempt to eat) 112 pounds of potatoes per capita last year. But lately, according to NPR today, “the potato industry has been playing the part of jilted lover and taking its heartache to Congress.

“The National Potato Council is saying the U.S. Department of Agriculture “discriminates” against fresh, white potatoes. Huh?

“Back in 2007, the USDA ruled that women and children enrolled in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, known as WIC, couldn’t buy potatoes with the program’s vouchers. Instead, the nearly 9 million WIC participants, who have to be poor and at risk of under- or malnutrition to enroll in the program, are given a monthly benefit ($10 for women and $6 for children) to buy any fruit or vegetable except white potatoes.

“This month, industry groups persuaded some members of the House Appropriations Committee to introduce an amendment to change that — by permitting states the option to include potatoes in their WIC programs. The potato lobby is also hoping to change the final WIC rule on what foods are eligible for the WIC benefit. USDA is taking comments on it until June 29. Continue reading “Women, children, and potatoes”

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Redefining success

EVERY day, news releases and books cross my desk that promise success in all sorts of areas — getting a job, getting a better job, managing your employees, managing your boss, managing your relationships. Today’s New York Times ran a piece on a recent event aimed at redefining what REALLY matters:

“Some are interesting, some are ridiculous and many are repetitive takes on the same theme. But recently, I came across two items that, separately, talked about an issue I’ve tackled before in one of my columns — questioning what we actually mean by success. That column, which appeared almost a year ago to the day, discussed how we shouldn’t always aim for the extraordinary, but celebrate the ordinary. It was one of my most popular articles ever.So I was intrigued when I was told that a conference was being held on the very issue of redefining success. And, separately, that American Express had recently released a study showing that Americans were thinking of success in different ways than in the past.

“The Third Metric: Redefining Success Beyond Money & Power” was the conference presented last week by Mika Brzezinski, host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” and Arianna Huffington, editor in chief of the Huffington Post, at Ms. Huffington’s new apartment in TriBeCa (some 200 people squeezed into her living room).Panels, covering topics ranging from “Managing a Frenetic Life” to “Wellness and the Bottom Line,” featured a number of prominent people, among them the actress Candice Bergen and Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to President Obama.  Continue reading “Redefining success”

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Social Security changes gender identity rules

Today marks an important victory for the transgender community, even though it may appear to be a small paperwork technicality, reports ThinkProgress.org. “The Social Security Administration (SSA) has announced that it is now much easier for trans people to change their gender identity on their Social Security records.images-2 All that will now be required, according to the National Center for Transgender Equality, is for individuals to submit government-issued documentation reflecting a gender change, or a certification from a physician confirming they have undergone appropriate clinical treatment for gender transition.

“This is a significant departure from the previous policy, which required documentation of complete sex reassignment surgery. Many trans people never undergo such procedures, either because they are too expensive, because they do not want to lose their procreative ability, or because it simply isn’t an important change for them to make to find authenticity in their identities. The SSA change eliminates this high standard for trans people to obtain the appropriate documentation for the gender that reflects how they live their daily lives.

“Though Social Security cards do not display gender, the SSA does maintain that information as data, and it can impact other governmental programs. For example, individuals seeking coverage under Medicaid, Medicare, Supplemental Security Income, or other public benefits could face complications if their gender markers do not match from form to form and identification to identification. In addition to an invasion of their privacy, the discordance could even lead to a denial of benefits. The new change will eliminate the obstacles trans people can face to access protections they often need because of other forms of discrimination they otherwise experience in society.”

 

More at: http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2013/06/14/2161991/transgender-social-security/?mobile=nc

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Considering the Equal Pay Act in 2013

Anyone following conservative media this past week has heard arguments against the need for the Equal Pay Act, signed into law by President John F Kennedy 50 years ago. A thoughtful images-1

piece appeared on NPR.org today digging a bit deeper into these disputes, as well as both the immediate and less-than-obvious state of the very real gender gap in remuneration these days.

” Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act in an effort to abolish wage discrimination based on gender. Half a century later, the Obama administration is pushing Congress to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act, designed to make wage differences more transparent. Some dispute the frequently cited figure that women are paid 77 cents for every dollar a man earns. But even those who argue the gap is narrower agree it’s most prominent when a woman enters her childbearing years.

“In 2010, an analytics firm called Reach Advisors crunched Census Bureau numbers and found something surprising: The median salary of single, childless women under the age of 30 was 8 percent higher than their male counterparts. That’s largely because more women are going to college than men. What made that number noteworthy is that it’s the only group of women who have a pay advantage. In fact, different numbers from Reach Advisors show that that early advantage vaporizes later in women’s lives — especially if they have children. Continue reading “Considering the Equal Pay Act in 2013”

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Academic moms: “baby penalty”

images-2Do babies matter to academic careers? It’s a question three researchers have spent a decade answering, and their findings are now available in what may be the most comprehensive look at gender, family and academe ever published. (Spoiler alert: the answer is “yes.”) Inside Higher Ed reports the unfortunate story:

“The book, Do Babies Matter? Gender and Family in the Ivory Tower, out this month from Rutgers University Press, includes new studies and builds on existing data about the effects of childbearing and rearing on men’s and women’s careers in higher education, from graduate school to retirement. Written by long-term collaborators Mary Anne Mason, professor of law at the University of California at Berkeley; Nicholas Wolfinger, associate professor of sociology at the University of Utah; and Marc Goulden, director of data initiatives at Berkeley, the work also looks at the effects of successful careers in academe on professors’ personal lives. It makes the case for more family-friendly institutional policies, arguing that such initiatives ultimately could save money for colleges by reducing “brain drain,” and includes best practices from real institutions trying to even out the playing field both for mothers and fathers who want better work-life balance. Continue reading “Academic moms: “baby penalty””

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Men need more vegetables

New research published in JAMA Internal Medicine finds that vegetarian diets are linked to a slightly lower risk of early death — about 12 percent lower over a period of about six years of follow-up. But the link to longevity was more significant in men compared with women, reports today’s NPR.images-2

“The study is based on a one-time survey of more than 70,000 Seventh-day Adventists, a religion that emphasizes healthful diets and abstaining from alcohol, caffeine and tobacco as part of a godly lifestyle. Not all adherents are vegetarians, but the church considers a meatless diet to be the ideal.

“The participants filled out a questionnaire so that researchers could determine whether they were meat eaters, semi-vegetarian, fish-eating vegetarians, lacto-ovo vegetarian (consuming meat or fish rarely, and eating eggs/dairy sometimes), or vegans.

“The researchers found that men who were eating vegetarian diets were less likely to die from heart disease and other heart conditions. In women, there were no significant reductions in death from cardiovascular disease. Now, many of us are eating less meat these days owing to environmental, health and animal welfare concerns. Continue reading “Men need more vegetables”

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Women as breadwinners at record high

Pew Research Center published an interesting report this week noting that women are now the sole or primary source of family income in 40% of U.S. households with children — a record high reports Maddow Blog.  “As Emily Arrowood explained, Fox host Lou Dobbs and his all-male panel of guests did not take the news well.images-1

“The clip has to be seen to be believed, but for those who can’t watch clips online, Dobbs said the Pew report is evidence of “society dissolving around us.” Juan Williams said the more women become the “primary bread winner,” the more we see “the disintegration of marriage.” He added, “Left, right, I don’t see how you can argue this.”

“Erick Erickson went even further:

“I am so used to liberals telling conservatives that they are anti-science. But I mean this is — liberals who defend this and say it’s not a bad thing are very anti-science. When you look at biology, look at the natural world, the roles of a male and female in society; in other animals the male typically is the dominant role, the female is not antithesis or is not competing; it’s a complementary role.” Continue reading “Women as breadwinners at record high”

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Sports figures help stop gendered violence

Brendon Ayanbadejo is correct: “Gay” does not equal “feminine.” More to the point, as the Super Bowl-winning linebacker recently told Meet the Press, “gay” does not automatically equal anything at all.images-4

As Huffington Post puts it: “People think that gayness has something to do with femininity, when really we just need to erase that stereotype from our minds, because LGBT people come in all different types and shapes and forms,” Ayanbadejo said shortly after Jason Collins became the NBA’s first out gay player.

“Way to go, Ayanbadejo. Double high-five, in fact. We already know he is awesome, but such continued challenging of these norms and stereotypes will not only promote LGBT rights and acceptance but stands to help prevent violence against women.

“Without diminishing current victories for LGBT rights, we also need to connect them with women’s rights and the increasing number of men stepping forward as leaders and partners in ending all forms of gender-based discrimination and violence.

“For far too long, popular culture and stereotypes have associated “gayness” with femininity. Of course, there’s nothing inherently wrong with the traits traditionally associated with “femininity.” The problem is this: Boys and men are taught to be “men,” and certainly to be good athletes, by not being “feminine.”Don’t cry like a girl. Don’t throw like a girl. Don’t be a bitch. In this way, boys and men learn that femininity is inferior. Femininity is a threat. Femininity is the enemy. Continue reading “Sports figures help stop gendered violence”