Tag: gender

As Gender Discrimination And Racism Intersect Transgender People Of Color Face Unique Challenges
LGBTQ, TOP FOUR

As Gender Discrimination And Racism Intersect Transgender People Of Color Face Unique Challenges

Throughout history, transgender people of color have had a place of honor in many indigenous cultures around the world. This changed in many places, however, as European colonizers began forcing indigenous people to follow white social norms. These include anti-Blackness, Christianity and a gender binary that reduced gender to just man and woman. Colonizers presumed that being cisgender, or having a gender identity that is congruent with gender assigned at birth, was the only acceptable norm. For trans people who refused or were unable to conform, colonial societies often used racism and cissexism, or behaviors and beliefs that assume the inferiority of trans people, to invalidate their existence, limit their access to resources and threaten their well-being. For example, colonizers in s...
Divided By Gender – Stereotypes Dissuade Girls From Careers In Computer Science
EDUCATION

Divided By Gender – Stereotypes Dissuade Girls From Careers In Computer Science

Allison Master, University of Houston; Andrew N. Meltzoff, University of Washington, and Sapna Cheryan, University of Washington Stereotypes about what boys and girls supposedly like aren’t hard to find. Toy advertisements send signals that science and electronic toys are intended for boys rather than girls. Computer scientists and engineers on television shows and movies are often white men, like the guys on “The Big Bang Theory.” Policymakers, teachers and parents sometimes subscribe to these stereotypes, too. They might spread them to children. Efforts to combat these stereotypes often focus on boys’ and girls’ abilities. But as researchers who specialize in motivation, identity and cognitive development, we think society has largely overlooked another harmful stereotype. And that ...
Asking For Help At Work Is Influenced By Gender, For Engineers
LGBTQ

Asking For Help At Work Is Influenced By Gender, For Engineers

Cristina Poleacovschi, Iowa State University; Amy N. Javernick-Will, University of Colorado Boulder; Sheng Wang, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and Tony W. Tong, University of Colorado Boulder The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work. The big idea In a study published in the Journal of Management in Engineering, we analyzed whether knowledge accessibility – defined as the time and effort that individuals spend seeking knowledge from their colleagues – is influenced by gender. Whether solving a technical problem or seeking career advice, employees benefit from knowing who can answer their questions. However, employees may find it difficult to ask certain colleagues for help and may avoid approaching them. In the male-dominated engineering industry, where women ...
Millennials Are Coming Out And Living In Their Gender Much Earlier Than Older Trans Generations
LGBTQ

Millennials Are Coming Out And Living In Their Gender Much Earlier Than Older Trans Generations

There are a few common identity milestones that transgender, or trans, people experience across their lives. One is starting to feel different than the sex assigned to them at birth. Another is identifying with a trans identity – for instance, as a trans man or genderqueer person, meaning they don’t identify with a binary gender such as a woman or a man. There also is the experience of living in line with this identity, which can include disclosing it to others, and changes to a person’s name, pronouns and appearance. And then there’s accessing gender-affirming medical care like puberty blockers, hormones or surgeries. These milestones can happen at any age in a person’s life, despite stereotypes that trans people must have always known they were trans. Some people may not go through all...
An Obstacle To Race And Gender Inclusion – The Iconic American Inventor Is Still A White Male
SOCIAL JUSTICE, VIDEO REELS

An Obstacle To Race And Gender Inclusion – The Iconic American Inventor Is Still A White Male

When President Barack Obama signed the America Invents Act in 2011, he was surrounded by a group of people of diverse ages, genders and races. The speech he delivered about the legislation, which changed the technical requirements for filing a patent, highlighted this diversity by emphasizing that today anyone can become an inventor in the United States. Despite Obama’s optimism about women and people of color inventing and patenting the nation’s new and innovative technologies, both groups still lag considerably behind their white male counterparts in being recognized as inventors and owning patents, in the U.S. and globally. Women and people of color possess the same intellectual capacities as their white male counterparts. Yet empirical studies consistently show that patent law overwhe...
The tech field failed a 25-year challenge to achieve gender equality by 2020 – culture change is key to getting on track
TECHNOLOGY, VIDEO REELS

The tech field failed a 25-year challenge to achieve gender equality by 2020 – culture change is key to getting on track

In 1995, pioneering computer scientist Anita Borg challenged the tech community to a moonshot: equal representation of women in tech by 2020. Twenty-five years later, we’re still far from that goal. In 2018, fewer than 30% of the employees in tech’s biggest companies and 20% of faculty in university computer science departments were women. On Women’s Equality Day in 2020, it’s appropriate to revisit Borg’s moonshot challenge. Today, awareness of the gender diversity problem in tech has increased, and professional development programs have improved women’s skills and opportunities. But special programs and “fixing women” by improving their skills have not been enough. By and large, the tech field doesn’t need to fix women, it needs to fix itself. As former head of a national supercomputer...
Addressing Racial And Gender Bias In Facial Recognition Surveillance
TECHNOLOGY

Addressing Racial And Gender Bias In Facial Recognition Surveillance

The dystopian surveillance state of science fiction media is within reach—and some privacy activists argue that it’s already here. Facial recognition advancements have spiked fear and uncertainty over misuse and civil liberties infringements, but with the alarm comes a wave of activists bringing solutions. What is facial recognition? Facial recognition is a form of artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence broadly refers to the development of computers to perform tasks that would normally require human intelligence. If you have an email, you are indebted to AI for directing spam to a separate folder instead of flooding your inbox—the computer learned to recognize the pattern of spam and filter it accordingly. If you have a YouTube account or music streaming service, your personalize...
Journalism

Will Caster Semenya Be the One to Finally Bring Down Gender Policing?

On what basis do you exclude athletes because of who they are? Natural testosterone is a human condition. Caster Semenya, one of the world’s greatest female middle-distance runners, may be forced to quit the event she has dominated for a decade. After easily winning the 800-meter race at an international meet in Doha on May 3, the South African athlete was defiant in saying she won’t comply with new restrictions that will be placed on her at future competitions. “No man, or any other human, can stop me from running,” she said after the race, her first—and possibly last—competition since a controversial ruling by the supreme court of international sport. Her defiant words were in reaction to a horrible ruling by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which denied an appeal b...
Gender Talk
Journalism

Gender Talk

In the African-American studies book Gender Talk, Dr. Johnnetta Cole and Dr. Beverly Guy-Sheftall argue that, in the 21st century, issues of sexism must be addressed along with issues of racism in the African American community in order for the community to fully succeed. Dr. Cole is the President of Bennett College in Greensboro, North Carolina. She is President emerita of Spelman College and Professor Emerita of Anthropology, Women's Studies, and African American Studies at Emory University. A nationally known African American feminist-intellectual, she is the author of several books, including Conversations: Straight Talk with America's Sister President. Beverly Guy-Sheftallis the Anna Julia Cooper Professor of Women's Studies and English, and the Director of the Women's Research and ...
SOCIAL JUSTICE

Gender Equality – One Harsh Reality, Unacceptable By Masses

As a woman I can tell it's not always an easy job to be a female. At every step of life you are taught how harsh and cruel the world is, and how the world is your judge in any phase of life, when you are a child you are taught to act like a lady and behave well in front of others, when you grow up to be a teenager you are constantly reminded of how you were when you were a child and sometimes it's really disgracing, and when after all the struggle you manage to grow up and become a lady. Oh well, that's the time when you are told to act your age and not to be childish, my question is, in the whole process of growing up, where was being yourself? What was that one point which was in favour of me? In the whole process of being what others want you to be, you start losing your inner integrity...