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Health

How The Mainstream Media Exploits ‘Science’ To Reinforce Gender Stereotypes

By Tara Culp-Ressler on Apr 9, 2013 at 12:00 pm

On Tuesday, mainstream news outlets covered the results from a small survey in Australia that polled just over 100 women about their sexual preferences. One headline atop an NBC story proclaimed, “Science proves women like men with bigger penises.” The reporter includes a few other examples of studies that have reached the same conclusions about women’s predisposition to larger male genitalia, but only after acknowledging that the results from past research on the topic “have been disputed as sexist, or scientifically flawed, or both.”

Sex and science often become entangled in the news, perhaps because the topic makes for eye-catching headlines. This is hardly the first time that the media has latched onto a small study in an attempt to make a larger statement about gender roles, regardless of the potentially shaky scientific relevance of this type of evolutionary psychology. Under the guise of being backed by scientific authority, news outlets will often tout studies’ results — or sometimes, selectively highlight certain results — to reinforce gender-based stereotypes. Of course, citing research also sets up a situation where it’s more difficult for opponents to take issue with the those studies, since it may appear as if they’re objecting to scientific fact simply because they don’t want to believe the truth.

Here are five other examples of this dynamic at play in mainstream media outlets:

1. Women’s hormones affect their voting choices. CNN incited significant backlash right before the 2012 election when the outlet published an article entitled, “Do hormones drive women’s votes?” The study, which consisted of unpublished data from researchers at the University of Texas, San Antonio, intended to investigate whether a woman’s hormone levels or relationship status contributes to her decision about how to cast her ballot. The study found, among other things, that women who are ovulating tend to favor more liberal political candidates because they “feel sexier.” After a massive outcry, CNN removed the article, explaining, “After further review, it was determined that some elements of the story did not meet the editorial standards of CNN.”

2. Husbands who do housework have less sex. A USA Today article published at the end of January suggested that “traditional chores are linked with more sex for married couples,” citing a study that relied on data collected two decades ago. The researchers believed that their findings — which found that couples in which women did more of the traditionally “female” chores had sex 1.6 times more each month than the couples in which men did all of those jobs — were still relevant despite the passage of time, because “the relationship between sex and housework has changed little since then.” But much of the coverage of the study drew a simplistic connection between chores and sexual activity without giving much consideration to the myriad of other factors that can contribute to a couple’s gender balance, sex life, and household chore break-down — particularly the fact that women and men have been socialized to consider many household tasks to be “women’s work.”

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Climate Progress

Rosie The Riveter On A Wind Turbine: Women And The Growing Green Economy

By Mari Hernandez, Guest Blogger and Rebecca Lefton, Guest Blogger on Apr 9, 2013 at 8:31 am

By Mari Hernandez and Rebecca Lefton

In March, the Bureau of Labor Services released its green jobs report, which reported a total of 3.4 million jobs associated with the production of green goods and services in 2011 – up from 3.1 million green jobs in 2010. Growing at a rate four times faster than all other jobs, the green sector offers new opportunities for good-paying jobs across the U.S. and raises the question: Are women benefitting from the transition to a green economy as much as men?

A new study suggests not, finding that women hold just three out of ten green jobs in the U.S. and are making less than men in the green sector. In the report “Quality Employment for Women in the Green Economy,” the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) provides estimates of the number of green jobs held by women within each state, industry and occupation using data gathered from surveys (BLS Green Goods and Services Survey and U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey 2008-2010), state reports and a 2011 report on green jobs (Brookings study). Several of the key findings from the report include:

  • Women are underrepresented in the green economy, holding just 29.5 percent of green jobs compared to 48 percent of the total U.S. workforce
  • Women’s estimated median earnings are higher in the green economy than in the overall economy ($38,486 compared to $35,574)
  • The gender wage gap is lower in the green economy than in the overall economy (18 percent compared to 22 percent, for 2008-2010)
  • The distribution of jobs in the green economy is more concentrated in industries that typically employ more men than women, including manufacturing, construction, transportation, warehousing and utilities
  • Women’s share of green jobs is expected to stay low since the occupations that are projected to see the most growth are traditionally held by men (heating and air conditioning technicians, carpenters and electricians)

With this first-of-its-kind analysis of the gender distribution of green jobs, the IWPR has uncovered both good and bad news. The good news: the green economy offers higher-paying jobs for women and a lower wage gap. The bad news is that this report also exposed the glaring underrepresentation of women in the green economy and a bleak outlook for women in the sector going forward.

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Justice

As Media Coverage Of A Female Candidate’s Appearance Go Up, Her Chances Of Winning Go Down

By Annie-Rose Strasser on Apr 8, 2013 at 11:19 am

When President Obama elicited outrage for saying that Attorney General Kamala Harris was “by far the best-looking attorney general in the country,” his defenders jumped to say that people offended by the comment should “lighten up,” or focus on more serious threats to women’s rights.

But just days after that comment, a brand new study shows there’s definitive evidence to back up what the detractors were saying all along: It might seem small, but pointing out the physical attributes of a woman in the political arena can have a big effect.

The study, released Monday by the Name It, Change It project, reveals that mentions of a woman’s appearance when she is running for political office — whether those mentions are flattering, unflattering, or neutral — has a negative impact on her electability. That includes “the horserace, her favorability, her likelihood to be seen as possessing positive traits, and how likely voters are to vote for her.”

The survey was conducted by asking 1,500 likely voters to read about two candidates, one male (Dan Jones) and one female (Jane Smith). Some groups received descriptions of the candidates that did not mention physical attributes. Others received one of three types of descriptions for the woman:

Neutral description: Smith dressed in a brown blouse, black skirt, and modest pumps with a short heel…

Positive description: In person, Smith is fit and atractive and looks even younger than her age. At the press conference, smartly
turned out in a ruffled jacket, pencil skirt, and fashionable high heels….

Negative description: Smith unfortunately sported a heavy layer of foundation and powder that had settled into her forehead lines, creating an unflattering look for an otherwise pretty woman, along with her famous fake, tacky nails.

When respondents hear the negative description of the female candidate’s appearance, she gets only 42 percent of the voters. When they hear the “flattering” description, she gets 43 percent (and there are fewer undecided votes overall, so her opponent gets an even bigger lead). With no physical description, Jane Smith gets 50 percent of the votes.

The same is true for all of her personal attributes; no matter the description, it affects her negatively:

But the real point of the survey — and the most salient fact that came from it — is that pushing back on the comodification of a female candidate’s beauty can be just as impactful as the criticism itself. Some respondents heard a defense from Jane Smith, saying, “My appearance is not news and does not deserve to be covered. Rarely do they cover men in this fashion and by doing so they depict women as less serious and having less to offer voters.” Others heard a similar defense from Name It, Change It. In both cases, when they heard that, their votes flipped back. Indeed, Jane Smith gained her first lead of the entire campaign.

It might seem lighthearted, or fair game, to comment on Hillary Clinton’s headbands, or Sheila Jackson Lee’s colorful suits. But those comments are not without repercussion. Overt, unequal, and pointed criticisms of women’s appearances are hurting them politically. And it might help explain that horrible ambition gap that’s keeping our elected government so heavily male.

Alyssa

Brittney Griner Deserves A Real NBA Tryout, Not A Publicity Stunt

By Travis Waldron on Apr 3, 2013 at 2:06 pm

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban told ESPN this morning that his team would consider drafting Brittney Griner, the 6-foot-8 standout for Baylor University’s women’s basketball team, in the second round of June’s NBA Draft.

“If she is the best on the board, I will take her,” Cuban told ESPN’s Tim McMahon Tuesday night. “I’ve thought about it. I’ve thought about it already. Would I do it? Right now, I’d lean toward yes, just to see if she can do it. You never know unless you give somebody a chance, and it’s not like the likelihood of any late-50s draft pick has a good chance of making it.”

At 6-foot-8, 208 pounds, Griner would be undersized at both center and power forward in a league where the average front court player weighs in around 235 pounds (based on my own quick calculations), and while she’s sized more closely to the typical NBA small forward, that’s a position I can’t recall her playing in college or international ball. But that doesn’t mean she couldn’t fit in somewhere, and she was a three-time All-American at Baylor, where she scored 3,283 points and blocked 748 shots. She also wouldn’t be the first woman to get drafted or try out for the NBA. In 1979, the Utah Jazz drafted Delta State star Lusia Harris in the seventh round; the same year, UCLA star Ann Meyers tried out for the Indiana Pacers. So if Griner wants that chance and an NBA team is willing to give it to her, it is a chance she deserves and one she should take.

That chance, however, should be a real one, not a publicity stunt aimed at selling tickets, as the Jazz selection of Harris admittedly was. The perception of female athletes is already too skewed by an inherently sexist world of sports to give Griner a cynical shot — or worse yet — a cynical spot on the team. Take, for instance, the immediate reaction ESPN received when it promoted Cuban’s comments on Twitter with the hashtag #GrinerNBA. The responses were overwhelmingly negative, ranging from people wanting to see her get dunked on by LeBron James and other male superstars to those saying she belonged in the NBA because that’s where “men” play or demeaned not only her skill but her size, her appearance, and her voice.

The disgusting responses #GrinerNBA received aren’t just aimed at Brittney Griner, though. They’re emblematic of a sports culture, particularly among fans, that simultaneously objectifies the appearances of female athletes and rejects them as incapable athletes. It’s no secret that the bodies of female athletes (and women in general) are objectified in ways that men’s bodies rarely, if ever, are. And women like Griner who don’t fit the “sexy” model are instantly judged as not sufficiently feminine. That helps foster stereotypes of female athletes that create problems in their own sports and drive women and girls not to sports but away from them. It also prevents us from seeing women like Griner as the phenomenal athletes they are, from appreciating their skills and accomplishments as athletic triumphs and not as diminished products because of how they look or because they aren’t playing the men’s game.

That we have so far to go in viewing Griner and other female athletes on their own merits, both as sportswomen and as people, is precisely why her NBA tryout, if it happens, can’t be a cynical stunt. Her success or failure should be based on her merits alone, and if it is, neither Griner nor the NBA will be any worse because of it. Cuban seems sincere. That’s good, because a real chance, no matter success or failure, will continue the fight to slowly break down the barriers and perceptions that face female athletes. A publicity stunt will only reinforce them.

Security

Saudi Women Can Now Ride A Bike In Public – With Certain Restrictions

By Ben Armbruster on Apr 1, 2013 at 12:45 pm


A Saudi newspaper reportedly said that the conservative religious country will now allow women to ride a bicycle in public. Well, sort of, the AP reports:

The Al-Yawm daily cited an unnamed official from the powerful religious police as saying women will be allowed to ride bikes in parks and recreational areas, but they must accompanied by a male relative and dressed in the full Islamic head-to-toe abaya. [...]

The official told the paper that Saudi women may not use the bikes for transportation, but “only for entertainment,” and that they should shun places where young men gather “to avoid harassment.”

So Saudi women can now ride bikes (progress?), but they can’t do it unaccompanied, must be completely covered and can’t use a bicycle for transportation purposes (baby steps). Women are also not allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia, despite a series of recent local protest movements seeking to overturn the ban.

There have been other small steps forward for women’s rights in this deeply conservative and repressive culture. The Kingdom sent a woman to the summer olympics for the first time last year and in 2011, the Saudi King granted women the right to vote and run in municipal elections starting in 2015. King Abdullah also recently appointed 30 women to the previously all-male Shura Council, a formal advisory committee in Saudi Arabia. And another Saudi newspaper reported last week that authorities will license women’s sports clubs for the first time.

But Saudi Arabia is still by no means a haven for political and human rights. Last year, Princess Basma Bint Saud Bin Abdul Aziz, a Saudi royal living in London, risked severe backlash by calling for reform, particularly of the religious police. “It is such a non-tolerant atmosphere,” she said. “Our religious police has the most dangerous effect on society – the segregation of genders, putting the wrong ideas in the heads of men and women, producing psychological diseases that never existed in our country before, like fanaticism.”

But in a new piece looking at expanding rights for women in Saudi Arabia, Time Magazine Middle East Bureau Chief Aryn Baker observes that, “From the outside, progress on women’s rights in the kingdom may appear to be mired in tar,” but, she adds, “from the perspective of women inside the country, dizzying changes are afoot.”

Immigration

Immigrant Women Face More Abuse And Family Separation, Study Finds

By Aviva Shen on Mar 29, 2013 at 12:30 pm


Tough border enforcement meant to discourage illegal crossing over the years has largely backfired, encouraging permanent migration particularly by women and families. According to a new report by the University of Arizona’s Latin American Studies, women endure especially grueling and dangerous crossings, rarely making it to their destinations compared to men.

Migration to the U.S. was once entirely dominated by male laborers who crossed for seasonal work before returning home to Mexico. For the past decade, tougher borders have pushed workers to remain in the U.S. rather than risk another crossing. Meanwhile, women and families are beginning to make up a larger proportion of migrants, leading to more permanent migration. In surveys with more than 1,100 deportees over the past 3 years, more than half the deportees interviewed had at least one family member who is a U.S. citizen, while one in four had a child under 18 who is a U.S. citizen. As many as 61 percent planned to cross again because they considered the U.S. to be their home.

Twelve percent of deportees had witnessed some form of violence against women during the crossing, including rape, beatings, and kidnappings. Migrants share the route to the U.S. with drug traffickers, who will often accost, rob and rape groups trying to cross. Coyotes, the men paid to lead groups across the border, are also known to beat and rape women on their journey. Women had a higher rate of being abandoned while crossing than men. Men tend to repeatedly make the crossing after deportation back to Mexico, while women attempt multiple crossings much less frequently. However, after crossing, women tend to spend more time in the U.S. and put down roots.

Once employed in the U.S., workers grapple with exploitation in the workforce; 15 percent have been denied payment for work, while 17 percent were threatened with deportation or blackmailed by bosses and neighbors. Women, who make up 22 percent of the farm worker population, endure routine sexual violence and harassment, but do not report their abuse for fear of deportation.

Women have also suffered widespread abuse in federal detention centers, where they comprise 10 percent of the detained population. Between 2007 and 2011, there were 200 allegations of sexual abuse by staffers and other inmates, while many other instances likely went unreported. Many women have also reported they were denied medical care, strip-searched, and routinely shackled. They are regularly separated from male relatives and children and sent to unfamiliar border towns controlled by drug cartels. More than 200,000 undocumented immigrants whose children were U.S. citizens were deported over the last two years, while records show 5,000 children were placed in foster care in 2011 after their parents were deported.

The face of undocumented immigration has shifted to include more women and families. Nevertheless, border enforcement continues to treat migrants as dangerous criminals. The Obama administration spent $18 billion on immigration enforcement in 2012, more than every other federal law enforcement agency combined. Detention costs about $164 per person every day, and is projected to cost $1.96 billion in fiscal year 2013.

Health

Top Republican Strategist: GOP ‘Doesn’t Give Equal Opportunity To Women’

By Sy Mukherjee on Mar 10, 2013 at 12:35 pm

During a segment on women’s evolving roles in the workplace on Meet the Press Sunday morning, GOP political operative and former McCain campaign adviser Steve Schmidt made a compelling case for equal opportunity in American businesses and the country at large, asserting that organizations that do not afford women a place at the table are on the wrong side of history and will, eventually, lose out.

Schmidt also extended the criticism as far as his own party, pointing out that Republicans face an institutional disadvantage due to their lack of female leaders and poor outreach to women:

SCHMIDT: I think in any organization where women are not at the table, where it is skewed male in today’s day and age, that’s an organization that’s deficient. That’s an organization that’s going to have problems. It’s one of the problems we have structurally in the Republican Party. We don’t have enough women at the table. But any company, any organization in today’s day and age that doesn’t give equal opportunity to women, that doesn’t advance women to the table, is going to be an organization that has difficulty competing.

Watch it:

While women have indeed made enormous strides in the last several decades, they remain hamstrung by the legacies of institutional sexism. And Schmidt is certainly correct to point out the contemporary GOP’s woes with women — out of the record 20 women currently in the Senate, only four are Republicans. President Obama handily carried women voters in the 2012 election, thanks in large part to horrific comments about rape and the Republican Party’s overall decidedly anti-women policies.

Climate Progress

Why True Sustainability Requires Gender Equality

By Climate Guest Blogger on Mar 10, 2013 at 9:15 am

By Adam James, via the Center for American Progress

America in the 21st century will look radically different than it did in the 20th century. There are two interesting trends worth noting that will account for at least part of this difference. First, women are now a majority in the workforce, although progress is uneven, with fewer women in leadership positions. Second, the clean energy economy has begun to take off, currently accounting for 2.7 million U.S. jobs — or 2 percent of all employment — and growing.

At the intersection of these two trends is a real urgency to ensure that gender equity is at the forefront as our nation transforms to become more low-carbon, resilient, and sustainable. Placing gender equity as a priority in the clean economy could help rapidly transition our overall workforce, as the clean economy continues to grow at a rapid pace, taking up a larger and larger portion of total jobs within a variety of sectors.

Embedding gender equity into the booming clean energy market does not necessarily require new policy solutions. The fact is that we already know how to create strong, progressive workforce standards and how to put safeguards in place that prevent discrimination in all its forms. But as we think about the gender gap that exists more generally throughout the economy, it is incredibly important that we continue to consider its impact on the sectors within the clean economy.

This way of thinking has two components. First, we need to make sure that the clean economy does not replicate or reinforce gender inequality. Second, the transition to a clean economy will be faster, stronger, and more sustainable if women are participating equally. As these sectors continue their rapid growth, the incorporation of best practices and standards will ensure that the future is much more equitable, sustainable, and vibrant than the economy of yesterday. The clean economy should be considered an opportunity to model the principles of gender parity that we seek to demonstrate in economic development more broadly.

Below, we examine the gender gap in employment before looking at the sectors that are most commonly employing clean economy workers to give some sense of why it is important to apply best practices and undo some of the damage inflicted by the chronic under-representation of women.

Looking At The Gender Gap And Implications For The Clean Economy

Hard data on the participation rate of women in the clean energy economy is hard to come by. The best studies on calculating jobs in the clean energy economy — or “green goods and services” — do not disaggregate male and female employment. But as the global Clean Energy Ministerial noted when launching its initiative to involve women more in clean energy:

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Security

Panetta: Military ‘Looked The Other Way’ In Rape Case

By Hayes Brown on Mar 8, 2013 at 1:30 pm

Former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta on Thursday criticized the military’s lackluster approach to sexual violence, saying that some officials “looked the other way” rather than pursuing convictions.

These words came during the funeral of Jeremy Goulet, a former serviceman who was killed last week in a gunfight with police after killing two Santa Cruz, CA officers. Goulet, who had a long history of incidences involving sexual assault and harassment, was released from the Army with a “less than honorable” discharge in 2006 as part of a plea bargain in a rape case.

Had Goulet been convicted of rape under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, he would likely be serving a sentence in a military prison. Panetta, who stepped down as Secretary of Defense two weeks ago, acknowledged the flaws in the military justice system’s handling of sexual violence while speaking at the officers’ funeral. “We do know that he had a history of sexual violence both in and out of the military. And for whatever reason, people somehow always looked the other way,” Panetta said. “And at some point, somebody pays a price.”

Sexual assault in the military has been granted a renewed spotlight this week, after Air Force Lt. Gen. Craig Franklin’s overturned Lt. Col. James Wilkerson’s conviction of aggravated sexual assault, sparking outrage. Wilkerson — who was originally kicked out of the Air Force as part of his conviction — has been reinstated, though removed from the list of officers up for promotion by the Secretary of the Air Force. An estimated 19,000 instances of Military Sexual Trauma (MST) occurred in 2011 alone, though the actual number may be higher due to underreporting.

Panetta made promoting women’s rights a key part of his tenure at the Pentagon, including vowing to reduce the number of sexual assaults in the military. After Panetta signed off on changes that would allow women to serve in fighting roles inside combat zones, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey said that the integration of women into combat units could help reduce sexual assault.

During his confirmation hearing, current Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel pledged to continue Panetta’s work in this regard. Hagel is now being lobbied by several Senators, including Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), to do more — including looking into the Wilkerson case.

Alyssa

On International Women’s Day, Five Women In Pop Culture I’m Thankful For

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Mar 8, 2013 at 12:06 pm

It’s International Women’s Day, an occasion that often focuses on human rights and gender issues around the world. But I wanted to take today to remember that pop culture is a global enterprise, and women are doing amazing work as actors, directors, and writers all over the globe. Hollywood is such an international environment that I think we don’t always acknowledge the debts we owe to countries ranging from New Zealand to Malaysia. So today, here are five women in pop culture who make me thankful for the international community of film and television:

1. Jane Campion: This New Zealand-born writer and director is one of the fiercest champions for women’s stories out there, particularly ones that don’t fit neatly into romantic comedy story arcs or bandage dresses. The Piano, her story about a mute artist who is effectively sold off in marriage and shipped to the New Zealand frontier, is probably Campion’s most important work. But her new mini-series, detective story Top of The Lake, which premieres on the Sundance Channel on March 18, is a fascinating, twisty story, featuring Mad Men‘s Elisabeth Moss as a cop investigating a sex crime in a remote region where a colony of feminists is set to collide with the local culture.

2. Gurinder Chadha: One of the best stories about female athletes in recent years? Check. One of the best Jane Austen modernizations in recent years? Check. With movies like Bend It Like Beckham and Bride & Prejudice, Chadha, born in Nairobi to Sikh parents who were part of the Indian diaspora, and settled in the UK, has painted vivid portraits of immigrants and explored how culture survives outside its point of origin. And she’s done so while being funny, wildly romantic, and narratively rich.

3. Michelle Yeoh: News that we might finally get a sequel to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon that focuses on Yeoh’s character Yu Shu Lien is a welcome chance to celebrate this incredible, athletic Malaysian actress yet again. Famous for doing her own stunts, Yeoh also was a bright spot in the Pierce Brosnan years as one of the few characters to actually qualify as a Bond Woman, rather than an arm-candy Bond Girl, and recently turned in a fantastic performance as Aung San Suu Kyi in The Lady. Yeoh’s a constant reminder that women deserve better as characters, and as action stars, not least because she raises the ceiling on what everyone in her genre is capable of.

4. Salma Hayek: Born in Mexico and now a naturalized United States citizen, Hayek isn’t just a versatile actress who can segue easily between comedy and drama, and fim and television. She’s a producer who gave us Ugly Betty, one of very few shows about immigrant families, working-class neighborhoods in New York, and what it takes to actually break into the glamorous jobs in fashion and journalism so much other pop culture took for granted. And when she’s not making great pop culture, Hayek’s an advocate against domestic violence—she’s testified in support of the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act—and for immigrants.

5. Emma Thompson: What more needs to be said about the British actress and screenwriter who’s transitioned from romantic comedy heroine (and great Shakespearean actress) to one of the few women who can still act and not be a joke or a sidshow at middle age, who turned in the never-to-be-topped performance as a veiled Hillary Clinton in Primary Colors, who gave us the brilliant adaptation of Sense and Sensibility, who gave Sybill Trelawney dignity in the Harry Potter movies, and who reminds us how much we all love Joni Mitchell?

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