Face Gender Discrimination Research Articles

The effects of male peers on the educational outcomes of female college students in STEM: Experimental evidence from partnerships in Chemistry courses.

A major concern among universities around the world is that female students face gender bias, discrimination and related barriers in male-dominated STEM fields. To investigate this concern, we conducted a novel large-scale experiment of interactions between female and male students in one of the most important gateway courses for the Sciences and a course in which students interact one-on-one extensively throughout the term. Over the past four years, at a large public research university, we randomly paired every student enrolled in an introductory Chemistry lab (3,902 students and total N = 5,537). Using precise estimates from the experiment, we provide novel evidence that female students are not negatively affected academically by male partners. When assigned a male partner, female students do not receive lower scores or grades, and they are no more likely to drop the course or not continue in Chemistry or a STEM field. We also find that academically weaker female students are not negatively affected by male students and that female students are not negatively affected when paired with academically stronger male students. Although previous studies have documented that female students self-report experiencing gender bias from male peers in STEM, importantly, we do not find evidence that female students are negatively affected by male peers in intensive, long-term pairwise interactions in their course grades or future STEM course taking. The findings provide hopeful news for future trends in female representation in STEM fields.

Burnout Among Women Physicians: a Call to Action.

The purposes of this discussion are to describe what is known about burnout among women physicians and identify contributing factors, categories of impact, and methods for mitigating the phenomenon. The authors conclude with current gaps in research. Although there are a lack of investigations analyzing and reporting physician burnout data by gender, there is evidence to suggest that women physicians experience stress and burnout differently than their men counterparts. Women physicians are more likely to face gender discrimination, gender biases, deferred personal life decisions, and barriers to professional advancement, all of which may contribute to burnout. Interventions specific to preventing physician burnout in women should include (1) addressing barriers to career satisfaction, work life integration, and mental health; (2) identification and reduction of gender and maternal bias; (3) mentorship and sponsorship opportunities; (4) family leave, lactation, and child care policies and support. In addition, gaps in research must be addressed in an effort to inform best practices for measuring and addressing burnout among women physicians.

Suffering in Silence: The Resilience of Pakistan’s Female Journalists to Combat Sexual Harassment, Threats and Discrimination

ABSTRACTPakistan’s journalists confront severe safety risks across the country and impunity to crimes against them allows the perpetrators to go unpunished. Now the country is recognized as one of the deadliest places for working journalists in the world. Given this situation, the Pakistani female journalists are more vulnerable because they are not only prone to safety risks and sexual harassment, but also they face gender discrimination when it comes to their recruitment and equal pay-scale. In the past decade, there has been an alarming increase in attacks on female journalists and incidents of their sexual harassment in Pakistan. Notwithstanding the growing plague of sexual harassment and gender discrimination in the country, the resilience of female journalists to work within a threatening and prejudiced environment has not yet fully explored and analysed. Therefore, drawing on the postcolonial feminist theory, this study aims to investigate the Pakistani female journalists’ lived experiences of sexual harassment, threats and discrimination. The study also analyses the impacts of sexual harassment, threats and gender discrimination on the country’s female journalists. To achieve the aforementioned aims, this study uses the qualitative methods of in-depth interviews and focus groups discussion, and offers a thematic analysis of qualitative data.

Bank credit constraints for women‐led SMEs: Self‐restraint or lender bias?

AbstractWe test the existence of possible gender biases affecting firm behavior in demanding and obtaining bank credit using a cross‐country sample of European small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs). We show consistent evidence that female‐led firms are more likely than their male counterparts to refrain from applying for loans. When they apply, female‐led enterprises do not seem to face gender discrimination from the lender. Interestingly, however, signs of gender bias appear to arise during the upside phase of the economy. Overall, our study provides support for policy actions aimed at reducing the frictions faced by women‐led SMEs when accessing credit markets.

A Study on Social and Educational Status of Girls in Anand Taluka

Despite the progress that has been made by India in many areas, it is sad that girls and women still face discrimination in many areas including education which results in their low educational and social status. Education is the key factor for girl’s empowerment, prosperity, development and welfare. The researcher in this study found that there are several problems faced by girls- with regard to their education like child marriage, gender bias, dowry, financial constraints, lack of transportation facilities, cultural beliefs, rural environment, traditional thoughts, family responsibilities and parents’ lack of awareness. Majority respondents are of the opinion that it is only through education girls can have complete empowerment and this can bring complete transformation in the societies. The status of women is also found below as many respondents reported that they do not participate in the decision makings of families. At work place also they face gender discrimination, verbal, physical and sexual harassments and many other problems.

Juggling on the court: exploring female Basque pelota players’ experiences and empowerment strategies

ABSTRACT This paper focuses on gendered experiences of sportswomen in a traditional male-dominated sport in the Basque Country, named Basque pelota. From the 1990s, women play in regular championships, occupying a central public space in the Basque culture and challenging the gender order. The aim of the study is to ascertain and comprehend the barriers these women face and how they manage to persist in this context. Ten in-depth interviews were conducted with female Basque pelota players. Data were analysed through inductive codification. Players stressed being constantly obliged to face gender discrimination, feeling ‘undervalued’ and discriminated against as ‘outsiders’. Even so, they persist in this sport by their human agency, thanks to their empowerment, fighting spirit and determination to surpass discriminatory barriers. The sense of belonging and mutual support is fundamental in order to become fully involved and make a stand for a better future for women.

Gender diversity as an important element of diversity management in modern enterprises: case of Poland

Diversified human resources have an enormous potential. Therefore, their proper use can be translated into the success of the organization on the market. One of the main areas of diversity management in Poland is gender. Gender diversity constitutes one of the most significant elements of diversity management, which is a challenge to contemporary enterprises. Many business entities still fail to recognize the potential that lies in gender diversity, as evidenced by the unequal treatment of women and men in some companies. Women on the labor market still have to face gender discrimination. That is why it is worth to draw attention to gender diversity and its potential. In the first part of the paper, diversity management is presented from the theoretical point of view on the basis of source literature and reports. The next chapter is focused on the issue of gender diversity based on studies conducted by various authors. The results of original studies concerning perception of women and men in management positions are presented in the subsequent part of the article. Furthermore, the authors have analyzed selected benefits and gender diversity support programs in contemporary enterprises. The main aim of the article is to draw attention to low participation of women in management positions in companies and to list arguments for eliminating this phenomenon by cautious use of diversity of competencies of both sexes. Empirical part of the article is, in turn, based on the results of the original survey conducted in Polish companies. The aim of the study was, inter alia, to compare the perception of women and men in management positions in the scope of 33 competences from 11 groups of competences from the domain of emotional intelligence. The study also refers to research on gender diversity carried out by other Polish and foreign authors. Furthermore, the authors have analyzed selected benefits and gender diversity support programs in contemporary enterprises. Discussion presented in this article can serve as methodological frame for developing actions in companies oriented at gender diversity as one of their organizational values.

Интеграция женщин в вооруженные силы: перспективы и проблемы украинского общества

This article analyzes women’s integration into the Armed Forces of Ukraine from a liberal feminist point of view, incorporating sociological and gender perspectives. The phenomenon of vertical and horizontal gender segregation and gender discrimination in the Armed Forces is described as a problem of the labor market, based on both the Soviet legacy and global trends of women’s participation in the military. However, the growing number of military women in the contract service is primarily associated with the reluctance of men to hold low-paid positions. Women in the Armed Forces of Ukraine participate mostly in the so-called feminized professions: nursing, finance, logistics, and communications. Women in the military also face gender discrimination and prejudice. The infrastructure of the Ukrainian military is designed for the needs of men and thus excludes women with their specific needs from the army.In this article we consider the opportunities and challenges around the implementation of the gender policy of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Formally, the Ukrainian army had developed a gender policy that meets the national gender policy and attempts to guarantee equal rights for all persons, regardless of sex, in military life. However, there is resistance to the realistic implementation of the declared policy of equal rights and opportunities for women and men. The article is based on the findings of the “Invisible Battalion” project (conducted in 2015–2016), which ooked at the roles women played in the Antiterrorist Operation (ATO ) in the Donbas region and their fight for equal rights and opportunities in Ukraine. DOI: 10.25285/2078-1938-2018-10-2-13-33

Job satisfaction of Work Life Balance of Women employed in Unorganised sector in Kanchipuram District, Tamilnadu

In the construction industry around one third of the workers are women and children. Women workers are illiterate and therefore face serious work-related problems, namely wages and gender discrimination, sexual harassment, unsafe working environment etc. Despite all this, the construction industry mainly attracts women workers. Women workers skills are almost at the same level but they are not considered as such and asked to help their male co-workers. Husbands of some woman workers consume alcohol and beat them. Some woman workers develop relations with co-workers and get trapped. The women employees in kanchipuram city constitute universe for the study. The researcher has drawn 600 women employees working in construction industry in various taluk constituting 100 employees from each taluk for the purpose of the study. Data was collected with the help of a structured questionnaire and data was analyzed using statistical tools like ANOVA and Mean score. The study revealed that the levels of work-life balance of women employees in construction industry unorganised sectors of the study are significantly different.

Meta-analytic review of the development of face discrimination in infancy: Face race, face gender, infant age, and methodology moderate face discrimination.

Infants show facility for discriminating between individual faces within hours of birth. Over the first year of life, infants' face discrimination shows continued improvement with familiar face types, such as own-race faces, but not with unfamiliar face types, like other-race faces. The goal of this meta-analytic review is to provide an effect size for infants' face discrimination ability overall, with own-race faces, and with other-race faces within the first year of life, how this differs with age, and how it is influenced by task methodology. Inclusion criteria were (a) infant participants aged 0 to 12 months, (b) completing a human own- or other-race face discrimination task, (c) with discrimination being determined by infant looking. Our analysis included 30 works (165 samples, 1,926 participants participated in 2,623 tasks). The effect size for infants' face discrimination was small, 6.53% greater than chance (i.e., equal looking to the novel and familiar). There was a significant difference in discrimination by race, overall (own-race, 8.18%; other-race, 3.18%) and between ages (own-race: 0- to 4.5-month-olds, 7.32%; 5- to 7.5-month-olds, 9.17%; and 8- to 12-month-olds, 7.68%; other-race: 0- to 4.5-month-olds, 6.12%; 5- to 7.5-month-olds, 3.70%; and 8- to 12-month-olds, 2.79%). Multilevel linear (mixed-effects) models were used to predict face discrimination; infants' capacity to discriminate faces is sensitive to face characteristics including race, gender, and emotion as well as the methods used, including task timing, coding method, and visual angle. (PsycINFO Database Record

THE SCORPION WHO STINGS THE DOG WHO BITES: THE EFFECT OF WOMEN’S DIFFERENT JOB POSITIONS ON GENDER DISCRIMINATION IN MICROFINANCE

prefer male enemies to female ones; I can survive a dog's bite better than a scorpion's sting.(Matshona Dhliwayo)IntroductionEquitable access for women to employment, entrepreneurship and credit cannot be considered simply a women's (Joshi et al., 2015). In light of the causes of the recent financial crisis, the question can be raised of whether a more balanced representation of women, in industrial and financial firms, would have avoided corporate scandals and poor performance (Adams and Funk, 2012). Recent institutional policy interventions, such as gender quotas in corporate leading positions, show clear proof that gender equality and discrimination are now strategic issues.These reasons contributed to the success of microfinance institutions (MFIs) that are considered women paladins in the financial industry giving them access to credit. MFIs are a valid alternative to a conventional bank when providing financing to disadvantaged and poor people (Yunus et al., 2010; Quayes, 2012). Through smaller loans (outreach depth) granted to as many clients as possible (outreach breadth), MFIs promise to fight poverty, contribute to pro-poor growth (Mayoux, 2010) and to the empowerment of women who are the natural borrowers of these organizations (Strom et al., 2014). This evidence is driven by at least four reasons. First, in poor countries, women are poorer than men (Agier and Szafarz, 2013) and consequently they are natural candidates for MFIs to the point that their percentage on total borrowers has been used as a proxy of outreach depth (Mori et al., 2015). Second, women are usually considered credit constrained (Fletschner, 2008; 2009), investing in small-scale projects that are unattractive to conventional banks (Armendariz and Morduch, 2010). Third, capital access to women ensures more social (Aggarwal et al., 2015) and economic (Fletschner, 2008) benefits to their households than would occur if borrowers were men. Finally, women are better re-payers, enhancing the persistence of the usually fragile business model of the MFIs (Boehe and Cruz, 2013; D'Espallier et al., 2011).While women are the main target of MFIs and their empowerment has become crucial in microfinance, a still unanswered question is whether they face gender discrimination in credit conditions. In fact, in an attempt to grant smaller loans to as many clients as possible, credit rationing could potentially damage women, moving MFIs away from their mission of improving the condition of women and promoting their rights. Although gender discrimination cannot be treated as a marginal issue in microfinance (Mayoux, 2010), there are few studies on the topic and evidence ispuzzling, to say the least. For example, Storey (2002) does not find any denial rate divergence between men and women, as well as Corsi and De Angelis (2017) who find no evidence of gender discrimination against women borrowers in loan size. Agier and Szafarz (2013) document that women are discriminated in the size of loan, while Sagamba et al. (2013) observe a slight preference for female applicants.Our paper provides a perspective with the potential for accommodating the divergences found in the literature. We investigate the discrimination suffered by women borrowers, looking at the effect enhanced by women lenders in mitigating the phenomenon. The main idea is straightforward and fairly intuitive. We expect that the percentage of women employed in the MFIs shrinks the effect of smaller loans granted to women on the demand side for a sort of solidarity in sharing the same traits. The failure to consider this aspect could be the reason for the mixed findings documented so far. To investigate this issue, we discriminate MFIs based on the roles of women inside the organization: top roles (CEO or board members) and operational roles (managers, officers, and staff). As we will show, a study which abstains from considering this distinction would be missing any robust explanatory power. …

Supplemental Material for Meta-Analytic Review of the Development of Face Discrimination in Infancy: Face Race, Face Gender, Infant Age, and Methodology Moderate Face Discrimination

Supplemental Material for Meta-Analytic Review of the Development of Face Discrimination in Infancy: Face Race, Face Gender, Infant Age, and Methodology Moderate Face Discrimination

Optogenetic and pharmacological suppression of spatial clusters of face neurons reveal their causal role in face gender discrimination

Neurons that respond more to images of faces over nonface objects were identified in the inferior temporal (IT) cortex of primates three decades ago. Although it is hypothesized that perceptual discrimination between faces depends on the neural activity of IT subregions enriched with "face neurons," such a causal link has not been directly established. Here, using optogenetic and pharmacological methods, we reversibly suppressed the neural activity in small subregions of IT cortex of macaque monkeys performing a facial gender-discrimination task. Each type of intervention independently demonstrated that suppression of IT subregions enriched in face neurons induced a contralateral deficit in face gender-discrimination behavior. The same neural suppression of other IT subregions produced no detectable change in behavior. These results establish a causal link between the neural activity in IT face neuron subregions and face gender-discrimination behavior. Also, the demonstration that brief neural suppression of specific spatial subregions of IT induces behavioral effects opens the door for applying the technical advantages of optogenetics to a systematic attack on the causal relationship between IT cortex and high-level visual perception.

Interactions between concentric form-from-structure and face perception revealed by visual masking but not adaptation

Findings from diverse subfields of vision research suggest a potential link between high-level aspects of face perception and concentric form-from-structure perception. To explore this relationship, typical adults performed two adaptation experiments and two masking experiments to test whether concentric, but not nonconcentric, Glass patterns (a type of form-from-structure stimulus) utilize a processing mechanism shared by face perception. For the adaptation experiments, subjects were presented with an adaptor for 5 or 20 s, prior to discriminating a target. In the masking experiments, subjects saw a mask, then a target, and then a second mask. Measures of discriminability and bias were derived and repeated measures analysis of variance tested for pattern-specific masking and adaptation effects. Results from Experiment 1 show no Glass pattern-specific effect of adaptation to faces; results from Experiment 2 show concentric Glass pattern masking, but not adaptation, may impair upright/inverted face discrimination; results from Experiment 3 show concentric and radial Glass pattern masking impaired subsequent upright/inverted face discrimination more than translational Glass pattern masking; and results from Experiment 4 show concentric and radial Glass pattern masking impaired subsequent face gender discrimination more than translational Glass pattern masking. Taken together, these findings demonstrate interactions between concentric form-from-structure and face processing, suggesting a possible common processing pathway.

Sex Differences in Inhibition of Return in Face-gender Discrimination

The inhibition of return(IOR) promotes the exploration of new and previous unattended objects in the scene during visual search or foraging by preventing attention from returning to already-attended objects.Many lines of evidence have shown that the different kinds of emotions have significant influence on the magnitude of inhibition of return(IOR) in the cue-response paradigm.Human faces,as the social and biological stimulus,play an important role in our social life,and face-gender information is also important in our social activity,especially during face-to-face communications.However,it still remains largely unknown how the face-gender information affects IOR and what the difference is between sexes in IOR effects.Using the cue-target paradigm as used in other studies,in the present study we explored the sex difference in IOR effect in the face-gender discrimination task.During the cue period,a green colored box(cue) was first shown on either the right or left side of a monitor screen with equal probability for 200 ms,which was followed by a central cue.Then,the target face(either a male or a female face with neutral emotion,randomly arranged) was then appeared on the valid position(the same position the cue had been) or invalid position(the position in the other side of the cue) with equal probability after the offset of central cue.Subjects were asked to discriminate the gender of the target face by pressing a button out of two as accurately and quickly as possible.We collected behavioral data from each subject,including correct rate and reaction time.Forty-six college participants including 22 males and 24 females were recruited in the present study.Our data showed that the reaction time to face-gender in valid-cued locations was significantly longer than that in invalid-cued locations,which indicates that there exists IOR in the face-gender discrimination task.Furthermore,the male subjects did not show any difference in the magnitude of IOR between male and female faces,which indicates that face-gender has no effect on IOR effects in the face-gender discrimination task.However,the average magnitude of IOR for male faces in female participants in their follicular phase was smaller than those participants in their luteal phase,which suggests that the magnitude of IOR is related to the interaction of face-gender and the menstrual period of the female subjects.Our data show that IOR in the face-gender discrimination task does not show any sex difference.We therefore provide evidence for the 'blind' mechanism of IOR in the present study.However,the difference in magnitude of IOR between different menstrual periods of female subjects suggests that the effect of face-gender on IOR relies on the participants' sensitivity to gender and sex information.

Contrasting the use of interattribute distances with that of all other face-gender discrimination cues

Contrasting the use of interattribute distances with that of all other face-gender discrimination cues

The time course of chromatic and achromatic information extraction in a face-gender discrimination task

The time course of chromatic and achromatic information extraction in a face-gender discrimination task

Neural correlates of face gender discrimination learning

Using combined psychophysics and event-related potentials (ERPs), we investigated the effect of perceptual learning on face gender discrimination and probe the neural correlates of the learning effect. Human subjects were trained to perform a gender discrimination task with male or female faces. Before and after training, they were tested with the trained faces and other faces with the same and opposite genders. ERPs responding to these faces were recorded. Psychophysical results showed that training significantly improved subjects' discrimination performance and the improvement was specific to the trained gender, as well as to the trained identities. The training effect indicates that learning occurs at two levels-the category level (gender) and the exemplar level (identity). ERP analyses showed that the gender and identity learning was associated with the N170 latency reduction at the left occipital-temporal area and the N170 amplitude reduction at the right occipital-temporal area, respectively. These findings provide evidence for the facilitation model and the sharpening model on neuronal plasticity from visual experience, suggesting a faster processing speed and a sparser representation of face induced by perceptual learning.

Low sensitivities but surprisingly high efficiencies for face-gender discrimination from interattribute distances

Low sensitivities but surprisingly high efficiencies for face-gender discrimination from interattribute distances

The time course of chromatic and achromatic information extraction in a face-gender discrimination task

The time course of chromatic and achromatic information extraction in a face-gender discrimination task