Halloween Costumes

The author dressed up as
his father in 1990

According to a Colorado newspaper (Craig Daily Press, 2008) business owners note differences in the types of costumes that girls and boys want for Halloween. Girls, according to the article, have been buying fairy and princess costumes, while boys favor scarier fare: "Anything to do with horror movies", said Kmart assistant manager Tonia Coates.

The Boston Globe (2008) reports that the popularity of revealing costumes is declining for girls ages 6 - 14. "For the first time in years," according to the Globe, consumers are "seem to be demanding more fabric for their cash." According to a column at MSNBC (2008) entitled "Sexy Little Devils", this can only be to the good: "studies show that the oversexualization of girls correlates with depression and eating disorders."

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I'm all for covering up at Halloween. I'm from New England. It's freaking cold at the end of October! Sure, when I was a kid, I wanted to have beautiful, lightweight costumes, but they were usually combined with a heavy coat, so they never got seen. The best New England Halloween costumes I ever saw were based on a painted cardboard box, and could be worn over a snowsuit, if necessary.

Still, there are few things that make me crazier than the phrase "studies show". We've looked at a lot of studies about depression and eating disorders, and I haven't seen anything mentioned about "sexy nurse" costumes. A quick search this morning didn't find anything, either. What do you think?

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Math is not hard

"The United States is failing to develop the math skills of both girls and boys. . . .", suggests the New York Times (2008), because "American culture does not highly value talent in math." This conclusion is based largely on Mertz et al's (2008) study of several top tier mathematics competitions: The Putnam Competition, the International Math Olympiad, and The USA Math Olympiad. In international competition, other countries sent girls to compete far more often than the United States. In the United States, most female math competitors were immigrants or children of immigrants. However, the report stresses that this problem does not only apply to girls:

"The U.S. culture that is discouraging girls is also discouraging boys," says Janet Mertz, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of oncology and the senior author of the study. "The situation is becoming urgent. The data show that a majority of the top young mathematicians in this country were not born here." -- EurekAlert (2008)

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This story is about three weeks old, but a column I read this morning on the way to work reminded me about it. Radio personality Garrison Keillor, in the International Herald Tribune (2008), said that it was time to nip the Republican's anti-intellectualism "in the bud". I think it's too late for that, and I think Mertz's study is an excellent example of why. This bud has seeded, and now we're stuck weeding.

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Muriel Niederle and competition

One of the earliest posts on DBlog, and still one of the most viewed, is "Beaten by a Girl" (8/27/06), which examined the cultural difference between a man who loses to a woman versus when a woman loses to a man (especially based on Gneezy, Niederle, and Rustichini, 2003).

Niederle especially went on to examine gender differences in competitiveness. Niederle and Vesterlund (2005) displayed that on repeated tasks, men seemed more confident in their ability to place high in a group. This year, Niederle and Yestrumskas (2008) showed that men would more often pick a "hard" task over an "easy" one, if the payoffs are higher. However, women disproportionately more ready to compete when only competing against other women, according to Niederle, Segal, and Vesterlund (2008)

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I was ready to jump right in and say that this was strictly a risk-averse/risk-assessment issue. We've seen a lot of evidence that women tend to be more risk averse and/or assess risks as more serious than men do. However, I feel like the final paper - which is focused on assessing the cost of affirmative action programs - really changes the way I feel about this. When affirmative action programs are in place, and women are theoretically competing only with other women, women apply for competitive positions more often - disproportionately more often than the overall increase in their chances would suggest. Maybe this just means that the risk-assessment of competing versus men is being over-estimated by women.

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Adultery Gap

The New York Times (2008) explored the weakness of self-report surveys in the study of extramarital sex yesterday, in an article that examined inconsistencies in the "adultery gap." More men than women typically report that they have had extramarital sex, according to the General Social Survey, which has polled men and women about their sex lives since 1972. The NYT article quotes David C. Atkins*: if "you start looking at specific gender and age cohorts, we do start to see some pretty significant changes" in infidelity reporting. The article points out that women report higher numbers in anonymous surveys than face-to-face, suggesting that they are lying to fit a social standard.

The tendency for women to lie about their sex lives, due to the sexual double standard, was explored in a NYT article last year as well (see 8/13/07), which suggested that average sexual partners between men and women should be similar, mathematically speaking.

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So, I think I've figured out my problem with this topic. Last August, when the NYT published the "mathematical proof" that women were lying about their sexual histories, I reacted pretty strongly. Strongly enough, in fact, that a mathematics blog listed me among bloggers getting their "panties into a knot" over it. I've been thinking about it, and you know: that's fair. I do get my panties into a knot over it, because it seems to always be presented as women lying to get their sexual numbers down. There doesn't seem to be much mention of men lying to increase their numbers, which seems just as likely to me as the converse.

*supposedly at the Center for the Study of Health and Risk Behaviors, but not listed on their website

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Indecision

According to MarketWatch (2008) in both the 2004 and 2008 elections, women were more likely to be among late-deciding voters. A poll taken by Pew last week showed that 60% of undecided registered voters were women. However, this figure is slightly misleading, because women also make up more than half of registered voters.

Rutgers University's Center for American Women and Politics tracks the trends and impacts of the "woman" voting block in each American election year . However, the Center's primary mission is "to enhance women's influence and leadership in public life."

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I have a really hard time understanding how someone can be undecided at this point, but apparently my mother was still weighing the options until fairly recently. I don't know if she still is, but I finally got up the guts to talk to her about the subject last week. My vote doesn't matter that much: I live in Massachusetts, and we always go Democrat. My mother lives in a swing state (New Hampshire), so I care a lot more about how she votes than about how I do.

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Domestic Partnerships

A letter to a Florida newspaper (The Ledger, 2008) frames the "Florida Marriage Amendment" (Ballotpedia, 2008) in an interesting way, pointing out the need for domestic partner benefits among opposite-sex couples:

"Contrary to popular opinion, a large portion of unmarried couples aren't young or gay, they're men and women older than 65 who are forced to choose between remarriage and subsequent financial loss (i.e., survivor benefits), or a domestic partnership."

The letter goes on to point out that Florida has three quarters of a million households made up of unmarried seniors. Brown et al (2005) suggest that unmarried cohabitation does not provide the same mental health benefits for older men as a married relationship.

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When I consider alternatives to marriage, I do think about younger couples and people who have chosen not to marry, but I have to admit that I didn't consider the financial implications of marriage for older people. I think I have a lot of bitterness about older people "ruining" elections, because it's hard for me to consider protecting the rights of the elderly, and getting domestic partner benefits to continue receiving survivor benefits seems like a cheat to me - a loophole, if you will. On the other hand, I can't really support the idea of reducing the support of someone on a fixed income. I haven't given this enough thought to really support either side, but it does make the domestic partnership issue more complicated for me.

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Fear of Public Speaking

In a special Halloween post in 2006 ("Fear Factors"), I discussed differences in specific types of phobias: while women are more likely to suffer from anxiety-related disorders, blood/needle phobias occur equally in men and women. This week, Australia's Sydney Morning Herald (2008) reports that fear of public speaking are similarly balanced across genders. Interestingly, city dwellers were more likely than country folk to report fear of public speaking.

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What is it when you hate speaking at all? Okay, anyone who knows me in person knows that I can't really say I hate speaking. I'm sort of a chatterbox. But I'm apparently quiet around people I don't know, and I suspect it's because I consider any talk "public speaking" until I've developed trust with my listeners. Which is hard for me.

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Science Careers Report: Publications

This week, we examine the findings published in "Gender Differences in the Careers of
Academic Scientists and Engineers: A Literature Review" (2003):

One of the human capital measurements that was often used to determine discrimination in promotion (discussed yesterday) is scholarly productivity: usually measured by publications. Section 5 of the report examines publication differences between male and female academic scientists. In one particularly interesting note, two studies found that women (in economics) were less likely than their male peers to co-author papers: this may be because both men and women seem to choose same-sex co-authors, and fewer female co-authors are available in a mostly-male field like economics. No data were available on other fields.

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Argh! I would love to look at this in a field like medicine or psychology, where there are a lot of women. It never would have occurred to me that people tend to choose co-authors of the same sex. Why would you? I only tend to notice the gender of co-authors when they have the same last name -- generally husband/wife teams.

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Dan4th is theoretically back from the conference, but may be stuck in Milwaukee.
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Science Careers Report: Rank

This week, we examine the findings published in "Gender Differences in the Careers of
Academic Scientists and Engineers: A Literature Review" (2003):

Yesterday, we discussed how earnings are affected by academic rank. Section 4 of the Rapoport et al report looks for evidence that women are underrepresented in the higher ranks of academia. Many of the variables of interest are derived from "Human Capital Theory", "human capital" being defined as "the set of skills and abilities that enable individuals to perform jobs." The studies examined ranged from 1960 - 1997, and tended to show a disadvantage for women at the higher ranks, although recent reports showed that lower-ranking academics were more likely to be women in many fields. Only the earlier studies seem to examine the age at which women get promoted.

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This reminds me of another post I've been meaning to make - or perhaps have already made and forgotten? - on "Why women leave [any field]". How much of this is work-life balance (read: children)? How much is getting sick of the sexism? The focus of the earlier studies on subjects like "women wait twice as long to be promoted" made my head spin. The people I know in academia don't wait around with a great deal of variation. After a certain span of years, you're either promoted, or you go somewhere else. I wonder if it used to be different.

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Dan4th is at a NSF conference this week. Responses will be slow.
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Science Careers Report: Earnings

The next few days will examine the findings published in "Gender Differences in the Careers of
Academic Scientists and Engineers: A Literature Review" (2003):

Section 3 of the report looks at studies from 1965 - 1993, and finds that although legislation in the 1970's did decrease the differential between men and women's pay in academic careers, a difference seems to persist. However, one study in particular found no significant difference in pay, when using academic ranks as a control variable. The review's authors (Rapoport et al) suggest that controlling for rank is a tricky proposition, as discrimination in promotion will mask discrimination in pay.

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I'm really never sure how to address this one. Should rank be included as a variable? When you think about pay differential, do you think about "men and women, doing the same job?" - and how do you define the same job? There are a couple dozen other people in my organization who share my job title, but the overlap between our actual duties is pretty superficial

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Dan4th is at a NSF conference this week. Responses will be slow.
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[from the vaults] Men's Estrogen

An unfinished draft from the vaults

Men produce E2 as well. While it has been suggested that urban chemical exposures (pollution) increases levels of E2, and that this can be linked to a decrease in fertility in urbanized populations, Tomei et al (2007) found that traffic police (who are subject to high levels of pollution exposure) had lower E2 levels than controls, and no greater incidence of fertility problems. (this cut from the post Estriadol and depression, 7/23/08)

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(commentary added 10/17/08) Funny, whenever they talk about women's testosterone, they're talking about leadership, aggression, and competitiveness. Whenever they talk about men's estrogen, they're talking about pollution, impotence, and infertility. It's more than a little fucked up.

The wireless third wheel

YouGov polled single men and women in the UK about their biggest turnoffs on a first date, in a study commissioned by CraigsList (Cellular-News, 2008). While men and women agreed on the worst first-date sin (poor hygiene), the next worst offense showed a distinct gender-split: 21% of men complained that paying more attention to a mobile phone than the date was "the most off-putting kind of behaviour", compared to only 5% of women. Relationship therapist Andrew Marshall suggests a possible reason:

"Men feel a great need to perform on a date... On a date, it's as if the man's the performer and the woman's the audience. And when you go to a play or film these days, what the audience is always told is: 'switch off your mobiles'." -- Cellular-News, 2008

It's not surprising that anyone would find phone use a bad sign: according to a survey by InsightExpress, 38% of people 18-24 have pretended to talk on their mobiles when no one was on the other end and 34% have arranged a "rescue" call from an unpleasant social situation BNet, 2007).

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I have a new phone, and I suspect I've been terribly rude to a lot of people as a consequence. I do usually try and involve the people I'm with in my phone play, but I'm pretty bad about giving undivided attention to anyone. I feel like I'm more forgiving about not getting undivided attention, but I might just not notice.

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Handwashing and trains

October 15 is Global Handwashing Day, and a recent study as part of a related awareness campaign had surprising results. Depending on region (all samples were taken near train stations in the U.K.), there seemed to be large gender differences in hand bacteria (EurekAlert, 2008). In London, women were three times as likely as men to have "faecal bacterial" on their hands; in Newcastle, men were twice as likely to have dirty hands. Previously, we'd looked at studies of handwashing in medical professionals (11/6/06), where women consistently showed better handwashing habits. However, this is the first handwashing study I've encountered in the general population that showed a difference.

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Okay, so my first question is whether they tested these people before or after they got on the train. Pretty much every time I ride the subway, I have an overwhelming urge to wash my hands afterwards -- but I rarely get a chance. I also touch different things based on how crowded the train is. If it's open, I sit, and my hands touch very little. If it's somewhat crowded, I have to hold a rail, and my hands get filthy. If it's jam-packed, I often can't even reach a rail. If these samples were taken after the train rides, I'd look to differences in the trains for the discrepancies. If they were taken before, I'd look at differences in local industry.

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Marriage wage effects: Men

Marriage seems to benefit men in many ways, especially showing health payoffs (see 8/14/08, 1/10/07). Married men also seem to make more than their single counterparts, according to Cornwell and Rupert (2007). Cornwell and Rupert suggest that this difference is due to "unobservable individual effects" and is 7% or less. This is very different from the effect sizes found in a cross-cultural study by Schoeni (1995) who found that the marriage premium for men ranged from 0% to 30%. However, it's possible that this premium reflects marriage choices on the part of women; men who make more money may be seen as better marriage prospects (see 9/1/06).

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Additionally, men with higher testosterone seem to be less likely to marry (2/9/07), so I'd be interested to see if there's a known correlation between testosterone levels and income.

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Dan4th copies comments to and from DifferenceBlog.com and Diffblog on LJ.
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Tailgating [fact-free filler]

A Tailgate party is one of the great North American traditions, deeply dependent on our car-happy culture. Tailgate parties are most widely associated with sporting events...

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... and are typically thought of as a primarily male event. My suspicion is that this is because it is an event that:

1. involves a lot of beer
2. is not near a bathroom

Look for women in a tailgate, and look for the people with the RV. Now, I freely admit that I am pulling this post entirely out of my ass. I haven't ever even been to a tailgate, and I was thinking "Gee, I should do that once." And then the bathroom thing occurred to me. Happy Canadian Thanksgiving and/or Columbus Day. Maybe you can watch a football game -- somewhere near a bathroom.

Shoes, women, and happiness

According to Reuters (2008), a recent Australian survey has "debunked several gender stereotypes, finding that shopping for new clothes and shoes made only 30 percent of women happy." While men and women both reported that relaxation was the activity that most often made them happy, over half of men reported being made happy by spending time on the internet. Women were more likely to name spending time together and eating meals together.

Novelist Fay Weldon certainly seems to consider shopping a source of happiness. In her recent non-fiction book, she devotes a chapter to shopping (right after "Sex", "Food", "Friends", and "Family" - chapters she says mirror what women will answer if you ask what makes them happy). She's been kind enough to put a preview in Google Books, allowing me to quote you a couple of lovely passages that spoke to me:

"Women can be wonderfully happy. When they're in love, when someone gives them flowers, when they've finally found the right pair of shoes and they even fit." -- Fay Weldon, What Makes Women Happy (2007), p. 3

"We gather in stores, in the good times, to keep ourselves going through the hard times. (That's a pun. Gather in stores of grain in the cave. Gather in stores to shop together in the new world. See?)" -- Ibid., p. 123

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I shouldn't tease the pop culture. But I was poking at Google books, and came across this, and I was absolutely floored to find out that this was written in this decade. Shortly thereafter, I was floored again to discover that Wikipedia says Ms. Weldon's "work has been associated with feminism." In what sense? Like aspirin is associated with headaches?

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Dan4th copies comments to and from DifferenceBlog.com and Diffblog on LJ.
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Tipping revisited

In response to a NYT article (2008) yesterday, the blog Consumerist (2008) is discussing whether, how, and if women are treated as "second-class citizens" in upscale restaurants. Commenters on the Consumerist thread, many of whom claim to have waited tables in the past, point out that women do not tend to tip as well as men, and order less food.

In April (4/7/08), we discussed that although waitstaff report differences between men's and women's tipping, a tip-diary study at a casual restaurant did not find any gender difference in average tip rates, and women were more likely to report awareness of the 15% "rule." An unpublished meta-analysis of several tipping situations by Lynn and McCall (1999) reports that (when controlling for bill size) men leave larger tips than women. This effect is modified by the fact that men leave smaller tips than women for male servers, but larger tips for female servers. The overall effect is explained by the fact that most tippers are male, and most servers are female. Liu (2008) suggests that when servers are customers, they are better tippers than non-servers.

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Now I have to wonder what percentage of men and women have ever worked as servers. It seems like if more women have been servers, and former servers tip better, then women should be (on average) better tippers. I know that I am a better tipper now than I was when I was a server: I was poorer then.

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Dan4th copies comments to and from DifferenceBlog.com and Diffblog on LJ.
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Sexual Dimorphism in faces

Does sexual dimorphism -- that is, men looking masculine and women looking feminine -- contribute to cross-cultural standards of beauty? The jury may still be out on this question. Rennels et al (2008) suggests that previous studies have shown inconsistent results in evaluating the attractiveness of "feminine male faces" because of the technique used to create the stimuli - averaging male and female faces. Averaging feminine male faces and masculine male faces seems to show that masculinity is preferred. In Behavioral Ecology, Little et al (2008) found that women seemed to give more priority to sexual differentiation in facial attractiveness than men for both sexes.

On the other hand, a debate wages about whether sexual dimorphism can be considered separately from other attractiveness factors. A meta-analysis by Rhodes (2006) suggests that sexual dimorphism, symmetry, and averageness are considered more attractive in both male and female faces across cultures. However, Little et al (2008) (in PLoS ONE) argue that symmetry is linked to sexual dimorphism - symmetric faces tend to show more masculine or feminine proportions. Rhodes appears to disagree with this link: Koehler et al (2004) (with Rhodes) argues that there is no link between facial symmetry and masculinity.

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I really have to wonder how relevant a forced-choice study on facial attractiveness is to mate choice, when faced with the amount of evidence that men are more likely than women to choose mates on the basis of attractiveness. That is: women can rate who is more attractive but they don't generally choose dates on that criteria. Speaking for myself, I feel like I'm more attracted to androgynous people, but I can't really tell how much of that is in facial structure, and how much of that is in attitude.

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Dan4th copies comments to and from DifferenceBlog.com and Diffblog on LJ.
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Genetic basis for homophobia

Verweij et al (2008) used the Australian Twins Registry (ATR) to examine whether there might be a genetic component to "negative attitudes toward homosexuals and homosexuality (homophobia)". As many other studies have found, women were less likely to hold homophobic beliefs than men, but in contrast with previous studies, no significant effect of age was found. Additionally, the study concluded that homophobic attitudes were "substantially inherited" and that "social environmental influences are relatively minor." However, the strongest effect size came from events outside the family home: "unique environment."

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I'm frighteningly certain that I've discussed the tendency for women be less homophobic, yet I can't find any post on the topic in previous DBlogs. Seriously? Did I just forget?

At any rate, I'm baffled by the assertion that social environment is a "relatively minor" contributor. The argument here is that because people marry people with similar beliefs, the genetic effect is higher than straight-up numbers demonstrate. Wait, what? I've heard a lot of weird theories argued with assortative mating, but this is by far the wackiest. Wouldn't it make more sense that social beliefs would be especially reinforced in a household where both parents held the belief?

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Dan4th copies comments to and from DifferenceBlog.com and Diffblog on LJ.
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Ladies and Men

A Vancouver Sun blog (2008) points out an interesting point about the 2010 Olympic programs: in some sports, female athletes are listed as women, in others, as ladies. Koivula (1998) makes mention of the "ladies" vs. "men" dichotomy, but focuses more on the coverage given to men's and women's sports on Swedish television (women's sports receiving less than 10% of the airtime). Women were also more likely to be infantilized (e.g. "young lady"/"girl") vs. men, even controlling for athlete age. The infantilism is also noted by Bernstein and Galily (2008) in their analysis of Israeli sports coverage. Finally, Koivula notes that female athletes were referred to by first names four times as often as male athletes, which she suggests may be a sign of decreased respect in comparison.

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The difference in coverage of men's and women's sports always struck me as a difference in sponsorship funding, but the ladies/women issue made me think about it again. I guess I didn't really need more proof of institionalized sexism, but the fact that I keep finding it makes me think about the Discordian Law of Fives: if you look for a connection, you'll find one.

That being said, I still find that ESPN is probably the biggest liberal news source on television. In my experience, ESPN spends more time reporting on women, minorities, glbt issues, and the handicapped than any of "real" news networks, and with more respect.

Off topic, check out Mir Kamin's collection of responses (2008) to the NYT article on the ISDP covered last month (9/9/08).

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Speechless

I don't know if I can write Difference Blog anymore: Sarah Palin has turned me into a sexist.

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Gendered debate

Banwart and McKinney (2005) compared male and female "debatestyles" in U.S. Senate and gubernatorial mixed-gender debates. The authors suggest that "candidates adopt a strategy of gendered adaptiveness"; this is more colorfully described as "Men, women debaters swap attitudes" in a Times of India headline (2008). Female candidates used personal attacks in 58% of their responses, vs. 45% for men. The authors also noted that male candidates were more likely to describe themselves as compassionate, and bring up women's issues, education, and health care. However, the characterization of certain topics as "masculine" or "feminine" can't go unquestioned: Diekman et al (2002) (with Eagly) found that "participants consistently underestimated men's support for female-stereotypic positions".

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Well, duh. Men running against a woman have different things to prove than women running against men. This seems like a hard study to perform, if only because there are so few examples to use. I also suspect there are differences in the reasons why men and women get involved in politics, and I'm not talking about "education" vs. "crime". "Ambition" is not a dirty word, but I do find myself struggling with it, in myself and others.

I'm really looking forward to the VP Debate tonight. I'm not actually expecting a debate, but it should at least be an entertaining farce. It would be really reassuring to find out that I'm wrong, and that there will be actual content.

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Dan4th copies comments to and from DifferenceBlog.com and Diffblog on LJ.
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Altruism

Andreoni and Westerlund (2001) attempt to answer the question "Which Is The Fair Sex?" using a modified dictator game: similar to Andreoni's (2000) results, discussed in September*, they found that women were more likely to "share evenly". Men were more responsive to the price of charity: when giving was expensive, men gave less often than women, but this reversed when giving was cheap. Mills et al (1989) found that, in hypothetical situations, men and women were equally likely to make a self-sacrificing choice rather than a selfish one, but their reported reasons for doing so differed by sex.

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So, what does "fair" mean in the context of charitable giving? Does it mean giving to each by their need, to level the playing field? Does it mean giving the same support to everyone? How do you manage fairness with limited resources. October is Blogger Challenge Month at DonorsChoose, and DifferenceBlog is participating again this year. I admit that I preferentially selected programs in high poverty schools. But I want to take an opportunity to say why I support DonorsChoose: teacher involvement is a huge predictor of student success. Because teachers have to write the proposals for materials donated through DonorsChoose, the projects are self-selected to classrooms where the teacher actually cares about getting their students involved.

Related posts: 5/27/08: Charitable Motivations
*9/4/08: Gender differences in charitable giving

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Dan4th copies comments to and from DifferenceBlog.com and Diffblog on LJ.
October is DonorsChoose's Blogger Challenge Month. Check out the projects that DifferenceBlog supports this year!