Transgenderism explained through quantum physics

Hope that clears it up.

via Wirecutter

Toxic masculinity - “I don’t know what it is but I hate it”

via Wirecutter

Jonathan Pie Back to the Studio - Straight White Male Privilege

"The only people that steal Africans are 19th Century plantation owners and Madonna."

Jonathan Pie at his very best. F%$king enjoy. EXPLETIVE language, but that's how we like it.

via MNE with thanks

"Eating meat creates toxic masculinity"

All I have to say is she really needs some meat.

H/T Wirecutter

"It is a general stylized fact that girls underperform in math; this constitutes one of the most resistant gender gaps of modern societies. We show that this specific handicap has been sharply attenuated in East Germany."

In those rare individual cases 

where women approach genius 

they also approach masculinity.

Otto Weininger - Sex and Character

A sentimental glance back into history.

Math, girls and socialism (Pdf)

Quentin Lippmann & Claudia Senik

Abstract:

This paper argues that the socialist episode in East Germany, which constituted a radical experiment in gender equality in the labor market and other instances, has left persistent tracks on gender norms. We focus on one of the most resilient and pervasive gender gaps in modern societies: mathematics. Using the German division as a natural experiment, we show that the underperformance of girls in math is sharply reduced in the regions of the former GDR, in contrast with those of the former FRG. We show that this East–West difference is due to girls’ attitudes, confidence and competitiveness in math, and not to other confounding factors, such as the difference in economic conditions or teaching styles across the former political border. We also provide illustrative evidence that the gender gap in math is smaller in European countries that used to be part of the Soviet bloc, as opposed to the rest of Europe. The lesson is twofold: (1) a large part of the pervasive gender gap in math is due to social stereotypes; (2) institutions can durably modify these stereotypes.

Conclusions 

The claim of this paper is that the socialist episode has exerted long lasting multidirectional effects on women’s expectations, self-confidence and choices. Previous studies have shown that women’s attachment to paid work was greater in East Germany. This paper extends the same conjecture to girls’ appetence for mathematics and achievement therein. It is a general stylized fact that girls underperform in math; this constitutes one of the most resistant gender gaps of modern societies. We show that this specific handicap has been sharply attenuated in East Germany. Even in recent years, girls’ performance in math, as measured by international standardized PISA scores, is closer to that of boys in the regions of the former GDR, as opposed to the former FRG. Evidence from the international standardized PISA scores, the International Mathematical Olympiads and International Chess competitions, suggest that the gender gap in math and math-minded competitions is generally smaller in countries of the former Soviet bloc, as opposed to other European countries. We interpret this stylized fact as a legacy of socialist institutions and policies that enacted, in a particularly compelling way, the objective of female full-employment. Policies that facilitated labor market participation and maternity for women were accompanied by official propaganda sustaining stereotypes of professionally active women, whose work was praised as a political engagement in the construction of socialism. Overall, this normative pressure changed the conception of gender roles and identity in many dimensions, including girls’ school curricula and performance.

"When the gender norm is violated, there is some compensating behavior to try to undo some of the utility loss experienced by the husband."

Or, keeping the equilibrium of expected and agreed upon social norms alive.

Manning up and womaning down: How husbands and wives report their earnings when she earns more

Abstract

Do gendered social norms influence survey reports of “objective” economic outcomes? This paper compares the earnings reported for husbands and wives in the Current Population Survey with their “true” earnings from administrative income-tax records. Estimates from OLS regressions show that survey respondents react to violations of the norm that husbands earn more than their wives by inflating their reports of husbands’ earnings and deflating their reports of wives’ earnings. On average, the gap between a husband’s survey and administrative earnings is 2.9 percentage points higher if his wife earns more than he does, and the gap between a wife’s survey and administrative earnings in 1.5 percentage points lower if she earns more than her husband does. These findings suggest that gendered social norms can influence survey reports of seemingly objective outcomes and that their impact may be heterogeneous not just between genders but also within gender.

and

The desire to view or present oneself in a positive light can lead survey respondents to over-report socially favored, and under-report socially disfavored, attitudes, circumstances, and behaviors (Bound, Brown and Mathiowetz 2000). Complicating the relationship between social desirability concerns and survey reporting behavior, a person’s identity may influence what is socially favored or disfavored. When a person self-identifies or is identified by others as a member of a group, he or she is subject to a set of behavioral norms for that group. How well the person adheres to these norms may affect the person’s own subjective sense of well-being and the sense of well-being of others (Akerlof and Kranton 2000). This paper asks how a specific gendered identity norm of different-sex marriage – that a husband should earn more than his wife – affects measurement error in the reported earnings reports of husbands and wives in the Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPSASEC).

It is not only that "When Wives Earn More Than Husbands, Neither Partner Likes to Admit It" but also the fear of marriage breakup.

Marriage therapists say marriages can become shakier when women earn more than men if men feel insecure or women lose respect for them. Economists say it’s one reason the loss of working-class jobs for men has led to such discontent — and to fewer marriages.

When the gender norm is violated, there is some compensating behavior to try to undo some of the utility loss experienced by the husband,” said Marianne Bertrand, an author of the study and an economist at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

"The essentially social logic of what is called 'vocation' has the effect of producing these kinds of harmonious encounters between dispositions and positions in which the victims of symbolic domination can felicitously (in both senses) perform the subaltern or subordinate tasks that are assigned to their virtues of submission, gentleness, docility, devotion and self-denial." 

Pierre Bourdieu

My former girlfriend went public in a letter

I did everything to prevent it.

Dear Sugars, 

How do I deal with my anger toward men? I go to therapy, I’m on antidepressants and I’m trying to practice self-care. But I’m still angry. I don’t think it’s unwarranted. I’ve been sexually assaulted at least twice. We live in a time where women have more rights than ever, but our president is an alleged sexual predator. Men are socialized to be condescending toward women, and even the few who check themselves often fail.

The only way to tell if a man is a sexual assaulter is to say no, and once you’re in that position, it’s too late. I have male friends who care about me — some who’ve even been sexually assaulted themselves — but they still don’t understand my pain. In my observation, there are elements of sexism in even the healthiest relationships, and that makes me angry.

I don’t want to be emotionally unavailable to the entire sex that I am attracted to. How am I supposed to find a life partner if I can’t even find many men who treat women like equals?

Justifiably Angry Feminist

On a positive note, she found help in wuss Steve Almond and Mama-san Cheryl Strayed.

Ask a child to draw a scientist, and she’s more likely than ever to draw a woman

Dr. Ruth, sizing it up

Good news from the gender stereotypes battlefield. Kids don't fall into that gender trap, at least up to a certain age when it all seems to unravel.

I am probably one of those exceptions because I always associated and still associate a scientist with a woman. Like Dr. Ruth Westheimer. She inspired me and I always looked up to her. Literally.

Perhaps it had to do with the field of her science, but I am also very partial to others. Be that as it may, here is the study.

Kids More Likely to Draw Scientists as Women

Ask a child to draw a scientist, and she’s more likely than ever to draw a woman. That’s according to a new study in Child Development. Researchers analyzed 78 “draw-a-scientist” studies dating back to the 1960s, involving 20,000 kids in kindergarten through 12th grade. Between 1966 and 1977, the paper says, less than 1 percent of U.S. kids chose to draw a woman when prompted to draw a scientist. But in studies from 1985 to 2016, 28 percent of children drew a female scientist, on average, with both girls and boys drawing women more often over time. Girls still drew female scientists much more often than boys, however.

“Our results suggest that children’s stereotypes change as women’s and men’s roles change in society,” co-author Alice Eagly, a professor of psychology at Northwestern University, said in a statement. “Children still draw more male than female scientists in recent studies, but that is expected because women remain a minority in several science fields.” Eagly and her co-authors also looked at how children form stereotypes about gender and science and found that they don’t begin to associate science with men until grade school.

The Development of Children's Gender‐Science Stereotypes: A Meta‐analysis of 5 Decades of U.S. Draw‐A‐Scientist Studies

Here the 'Conclusion and Implications' of the study.

In summary, the Draw-A-Scientist literature provided a valuable opportunity to study developmental and cultural change in the same meta-analysis and compare studies on a simple common metric assessing children’s associations of science with men. Our meta-analysis is the first systematic, quantitative review of this extensive literature spanning 5 decades of data collection. Based on 78 studies with over 20,000 children, U.S. children’s drawings of scientists depicted female scientists more often in later decades but less often among older children. These results suggest both agerelated and historical time-related changes in children’s gender-science stereotypes. The time-related change was consistent with increases in women’s representation in U.S. science. However, even in recent years, children may still learn to associate science with men because women remain underrepresented in some science fields. Consistent with this hypothesis, children in recent samples still drew more male than female scientists on average.

Pdf here